Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire

Table of contents :
List of illustrationspage viii
Acknowledgements ix
A note on translation xi
List of abbreviations xiii
1 Introduction 1
The way to heaven 1
Studying morality 3
Morality and reality 8
Studying masculinity 14
Masculinity and ‘crisis’ 19
Dei ning lay nobles 21
2 Moral texts and lay audiences 27
Genres and the layman 28
Lay mirrors 36
Moral advice for rulers 42
History and biography 47
Poetry 53
Regulatory texts 58
Letters 63
Conclusion 65
3 Warfare 69
Christian traditions 71
Justifying warfare 72
The rise of peacefulness? 77
Images of the warrior 82
Norms of warfare 100
Conclusion 111
4 Imagining power 116
The morality of social hierarchy 120
Moral hierarchy 123
Pride 124
Nobility and virtue 126
Noble self-sanctii cation 128
The Carolingian nobilis 130
Conclusion 133
5 Central power 135
Courtiers 136
Counts and morality 146
Justice and the legal system 159
Conclusion 170
6 Personal power 174
Carolingian households 175
The unfree 177
Lordship 188
Kinship 199
Conclusion 212
7 Power and wealth 214
The image of the rich 216
The means to wealth 220
The morality of land 221
Moral ways to wealth? 229
The use of wealth 232
Conclusion 245
8 Marriage 247
Studying marriage 248
Raptus 249
Incest 255
Polygamy 267
Divorce and remarriage 268
Conclusion 274
9 Sex 279
Studying sexuality 279
Unmarried men 282
Marital sex 285
Adultery 289
‘Unnatural’ sex 292
Carolingian sexual discourses 298
Masculinity and sex 304
Sex and the social order 306
Conclusion 309
10 Men and morality 311
Rel ections in the lay mirrors 311
How can men be moral? 312
How can moral men be manly? 317
Theories of Carolingian masculinity 321
Towards early medieval masculinity 326
Carolingian reform and gender 330
The end of the Carolingian consensus 334
Bibliography 339
Index 387

Citation preview

Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought M ORAL ITY AN D M AS CU LINITY I N TH E CAROL IN G IAN E M PIRE

What did it mean to be a Frankish nobleman in an age of reform? How could Carolingian lay nobles maintain their masculinity and their social position, while adhering to new and stricter moral demands by reformers concerning behaviour in war, sexual conduct and the correct use of power? This book explores the complex interaction between Christian moral ideals and social realities, and between religious reformers and the lay political elite they addressed. It uses the numerous texts addressed to a lay audience (including lay mirrors, secular poetry, political polemic, historical writings and legislation) to examine how biblical and patristic moral ideas were reshaped to become compatible with the realities of noble life in the Carolingian empire. This innovative analysis of Carolingian moral norms demonstrates how gender interacted with political and religious thought to create a distinctive Frankish elite culture, presenting a new picture of early medieval masculinity. rach e l stone is Departmental Library Cataloguer in the Department of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

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Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth Series General Editor: ro samond mckitte rick Professor of Medieval History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Sidney Sussex College Advisory Editors:

christine carpe nte r Professor of Medieval English History, University of Cambridge

jonathan she pard

The series Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought was inaugurated by G. G. Coulton in 1921; Professor Rosamond McKitterick now acts as General Editor of the Fourth Series, with Professor Christine Carpenter and Dr Jonathan Shepard as Advisory Editors. The series brings together outstanding work by medieval scholars over a wide range of human endeavour extending from political economy to the history of ideas. A list of titles in the series can be found at: www.cambridge.org/medievallifeandthought

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MO RALITY AN D MASCULINITY IN THE CA RO LINGIAN EMP IRE RAC HEL STONE Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

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camb ri dg e unive r sity p re ss Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107006744 © Rachel Stone 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Stone, Rachel. Morality and masculinity in the Carolingian empire / Rachel Stone. p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought : fourth series ; 81) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-00674-4 (hardback) 1. Carolingians – Conduct of life. 2. Nobility – France – Conduct of life. 3. Christian ethics – France – History – To 1500. 4. Moral education – France – History – To 1500. 5. Masculinity – France – History – To 1500. 6. France – History – To 987. 7. France – Social conditions – To 987. I. Title. II. Series. dc70.s76 2011 944′.014–dc23 2011028335 isbn 978-1-107-00674-4 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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C ONT ENT S

List of illustrations Acknowledgements A note on translation List of abbreviations

page viii ix xi xiii

1 I ntroduction

1

The way to heaven Studying morality Morality and reality Studying masculinity Masculinity and ‘crisis’ Deining lay nobles

1 3 8 14 19 21

2 Moral texts and lay audi e nce s Genres and the layman Lay mirrors Moral advice for rulers History and biography Poetry Regulatory texts Letters Conclusion

27 28 36 42 47 53 58 63 65

3 War fare

69

Christian traditions Justifying warfare The rise of peacefulness? Images of the warrior Norms of warfare Conclusion

71 72 77 82 100 111

v

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Contents 4 I mag i ni ng p owe r

116

The morality of social hierarchy Moral hierarchy Pride Nobility and virtue Noble self-sanctiication The Carolingian nobilis Conclusion

5 C e ntral p owe r

120 123 124 126 128 130 133

135

Courtiers Counts and morality Justice and the legal system Conclusion

136 146 159 170

6 Pe r s onal p owe r

174

Carolingian households The unfree Lordship Kinship Conclusion

175 177 188 199 212

7 Powe r and wealth

214

The image of the rich The means to wealth The morality of land Moral ways to wealth? The use of wealth Conclusion

216 220 221 229 232 245

8 M arri age

247

Studying marriage Raptus Incest Polygamy Divorce and remarriage Conclusion

248 249 255 267 268 274

9 S ex

279

Studying sexuality Unmarried men Marital sex Adultery ‘Unnatural’ sex

279 282 285 289 292

vi

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Contents

10

Carolingian sexual discourses Masculinity and sex Sex and the social order Conclusion

298 304 306 309

M e n and moral ity

311

Relections in the lay mirrors How can men be moral? How can moral men be manly? Theories of Carolingian masculinity Towards early medieval masculinity Carolingian reform and gender The end of the Carolingian consensus

311 312 317 321 326 330 334

Bibliography Index

339 387

vii

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I LL USTR AT IONS

Map 1 The Carolingian empire (base map © Central Intelligence Agency) Figure 1 Genealogy of Carolingian rulers (simpliied)

page xviii xix

viii

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A NOTE ON T RA NSLATIO N

Names of people and places have been translated into their standard English form, where there is one. Some terms have sometimes been left untranslated where a translation would not convey their full meaning, or they have multiple meanings. These are: Of f icial s dux, patricius, marchio: high secular oicial, often a military commander. missus (dominicus): royal commissioner or envoy. primores: magnates, leading men. iudex: judge, legal oicer, administrator (see Chapter 1, p. 5). Lord sh i p te rminology ( se e Chap te r 6 , pp. 188–9) homo: human being, man, (military) follower. miles: soldier, warrior, military follower, later used for knight. puer: boy, (military) follower. vassus, vassallus: military followers. idelis: faithful man, (military) follower. senior: lord, superior, older man, leading man. dominus: lord, master. House hol d te rmi nology servus, mancipium, ancilla, colonus, famulus: unfree people (see Chapter 6, p. 177). domus, familia: family, household, dependants (see Chapter 6, p. 173). paterfamilias: male head of household. xi

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A note on translation Othe r nobilis: noble, as adjective and noun (see Chapter 1, pp. 22–5). leges: law codes produced in the post-Roman West. ordo: order (in sense of rite or ordinance), category of people. honores: honour, oice, dignity, beneice. All source quotations are given in English and I have also included the Latin of key passages. I have quoted existing translations of two texts throughout the book: Janet L. Nelson, Annals of St-Bertin (Manchester, 1991) and Timothy Reuter, Annals of Fulda (Manchester, 1992). The remaining translations are my own, unless stated otherwise in the footnotes.

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AB BREVI AT IONS

AB Abbo

Ad Carolum III

Ad episcopos AF AF(B) AF(M) AMP ARF

ARF Rev. Astronomer

Annales Bertiniani, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SRG 5 (Hanover, 1883) Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés, Bella Parisiacae urbis, ed. and trans. Henri Waquet, Abbon: Le siège de Paris par les Normands, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 20 (Paris, 1942) Hincmar of Rheims, Ad Carolum III imperatorum ut Ludovici Balbi sobrini sui iliis regibus idoneos educatores et consiliarios constituat, PL 125, cols. 989–94 Hincmar of Rheims, Ad episcopos regni admonitio altera. Pro Carolomanno rege apud Sparnacum facta, PL 125, cols. 1007–18 Annales Fuldenses, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG 7 (Hanover, 1891) Bavarian continuation (pp. 107–35) Mainz continuation (pp. 97–107) Annales mettenses priores, ed. B. de Simson, MGH SRG 10 (Hanover, 1905) Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG 6 (Hanover, 1895) Revised version (facing pages) Astronomer, Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. and trans. Ernst Tremp, Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG 64 (Hanover, 1995), pp. 280–555 xiii

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List of abbreviations AV AX BnF CCCM CCSL CSEL De cavendis

De coercendo De divortio De iniusticiis De ordine

De regis DIL DIR DVV

Annales Vedastini, ed. B. de Simson, Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, MGH SRG 12 (Hanover, 1909), pp. 40–82 Annales Xantenses, ed. B. de Simson, Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, MGH SRG 12 (Hanover, 1909), pp. 1–33 Bibliothèque national de France Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout, 1966–) Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Turnhout, 1953–) Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1866–) Hincmar of Rheims, De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, ed. Doris Nachtmann, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 16 (Munich, 1998) Hincmar of Rheims, De coercendo et exstirpando raptu viduarum, puellarum ac sanctimonialium, PL 125, cols. 1017–36 Hincmar of Rheims, De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, ed. Letha Böhringer, MGH Conc. 4, Supplementum 1 (Hanover, 1992) Agobard, De iniusticiis, ed. L. Van Acker, in Agobard Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 225–7 Hincmar of Rheims, De ordine palatii, ed. and trans. Thomas Gross and Rudolf Schiefer, MGH Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum separatim editi 3 (Hanover, 1980) Hincmar of Rheims, De regis persona et regio ministerio, PL 125, cols. 833–56 Jonas of Orléans, De institutione laicali, PL 106, cols. 121–278 Jonas of Orléans, De institutione regia, ed. and trans. Alain Dubreucq, Jonas d’Orléans,‘Le Métier de roi’, Sources chrétiennes 407 (Paris, 1995) Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis liber, introduction and conclusion ed. Ernst Dümmler, Alcuin, Epistola 305, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 464–5. Chapters 1–26: PL 101, cols. 613–32. xiv

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List of abbreviations

EA Fredegar In honorem

LE LM

LRC

Mansi MGH MGH Cap. MGH Cap. episc. MGH Conc. MGH Dip. Kar. MGH Epp. MGH Leges nat. Germ. MGH Poet. MGH SRG MGH SRG n.s. MGH SRM

Chapters 27–35 from Troyes 1742, printed in Paul Szarmach, ‘The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, cap. xxvii–xxxv, with special reference to Vercelli Homily xx’, Mediaevalia 12 (1989), pp. 13–41 Paschasius Radbertus, Epitaphium Arsenii, PL 120, cols. 1557–1650 Fredegar, Chronicon, ed. and trans. J. M.WallaceHadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with Its Continuation (London, 1960) Ermoldus Nigellus, In honorem Hludovicii Pii, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932), pp. 2–201 Paulinus of Aquileia, Liber exhortationis, PL 99, cols. 197–282 Dhuoda, Liber manualis, ed. and trans. Marcelle Thiebaux, Dhuoda: Handbook for Her Warrior Son: ‘Liber manualis’, Cambridge Medieval Classics 8 (Cambridge, 1998) Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christianis, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, in Sedulius Scottus, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters, Band 1, Heft 1 (Munich, 1906), pp. 1–91 Giovanni Domenico Mansi et al. (eds.), Sacrorum conciliorum: Nova et amplissima collectio, 53 vols. (Graz, 1960–1) Monumenta Germaniae Historica Capitularia regum Francorum Capitula episcoporum Concilia Diplomata Karolinorum Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini aevi Leges nationum Germanicarum Poetae Latini aevi Carolini Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, nova series Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum xv

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List of abbreviations MGH SS Nithard Notker Novi regis Paraenesis PCR PL PLS Pseudo-Cyprian

Quierzy letter Regino Regula pastoralis

Settimane Thegan

VA VB

Scriptores in folio Nithard, Historiarum libri IIII, ed. Ernst Müller, MGH SRG 44 (Hanover, 1907) Notker Balbulus, Gesta Karoli Magni imperatoris, ed. Hans F. Haefele, MGH SRG, n.s. 12 (Berlin, 1959), pp. 93–172 Hincmar of Rheims, Novi regis instructio ad rectam regni administrationem, PL 125, cols. 983–90 Theodulf, Carmen 28, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 493–517 Peter Godman (ed.), Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1841–64) Pactus legis Salicae, ed. Karl August Eckhardt, MGH Leges nat. Germ. iv.1 (Hanover, 1962) Pseudo-Cyprian, Pseudo-Cyprianus: De xII abusivis saeculi, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur, 3. Reihe, Bd. 4, Heft 1 (Leipzig, 1909) Council of Quierzy 858, MGH Conc. 3, no. 41, pp. 408–27 Regino of Prüm, Chronicon, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG 50 (Hanover, 1890) Gregory the Great, Regula pastoralis, ed. and trans. Floribert Rommel and Charles Morel, Grégoire le Grand: ‘Règle pastorale’, 2 vols., Sources chrétiennes 382 (Paris, 1992) Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo Thegan, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, ed. and trans. Ernst Tremp, in Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG 64 (Hanover, 1995), pp 167–278 Paschasius Radbertus, Vita sancti Adalhardi, PL 120, cols. 1507–56 Ardo, Vita Benedicti abbatis Anianensis et Indensis, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS 15:1 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 200–20

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List of abbreviations Visio Wettini

VK

Walahfrid Strabo, Visio Wettini, ed. and trans. David A. Traill, Walahfrid Strabo’s Visio Wettini: Text, Translation and Commentary, Lateinische Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters 2 (Bern, 1974) Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, ed. O. HolderEgger, MGH SRG 25 (Hanover, 1911)

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Map 1 The Carolingian empire (base map © Central Intelligence Agency)

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Charles Martel (d. 741)

Pippin III (d. 768)

Carloman (d. 754) Charlemagne (d.814)

Pippin the Hunchback (d. 811)

Carloman (d. 771)

Pippin the Younger (d. 810)

Charles the Younger (d. 811)

Louis the Pious (see below)

Bernard of Italy (d. 818)

Louis the Pious (d. 840)

Pippin of Aquitaine (d. 838)

Lothar I (d. 855)

Louis II (d. 875)

Lothar II (d. 869)

Pippin II of Aquitaine (d. 864?)

Louis the German (d. 876)

Carloman of Bavaria (d. 880)

Arnulf (d. 899)

Charles the Bald (d. 877)

Louis the Younger (d. 882)

Charles the Fat (d. 888)

Louis III (d. 882)

Louis the Stammerer (d. 879)

Carloman (d. 884)

Charles the Simple (d. 929)

Figure 1 Genealogy of Carolingian rulers (simpliied)

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Chapter 1

I NTRODUC TI ON

T he way to heave n In about 800, Alcuin, abbot of St Martin of Tours, sent a moral treatise to Guy (Wido), count of the Breton march, entitled De virtutibus et vitiis. In his introduction, Alcuin said that he was writing since: ‘you entreated me with all your might to write some brief exhortation for your occupation, which we know that you have in military matters’.1 Alcuin’s response discussed the virtues and vices, focusing less on doctrine or devotional practices than on how laymen ought to behave. His aim was that ‘you might have a booklet every day in your sight, like a manual, in which you might be able to consider yourself, and what you ought to avoid or do’.2 This image of self-contemplation, also used in other moral texts, leads to the description of the genre of the ‘lay mirror’. Alcuin added: ‘Do not let either the condition [habitus] of a layman or the quality of a secular way of life [conversatio] frighten you, as if in this condition you were not able to enter the doors of the heavenly life.’3 The two men were both signiicant igures in the Carolingian kingdom. Guy was almost certainly part of the inluential ‘Widonid’ family, who dominated Neustrian politics in the early ninth century; another branch became dukes of Spoleto in Italy. He played important roles both

1

2

DVV introduction, p. 464. On the text see Donald A. Bullough, ‘Alcuin and lay virtue’, in Laura Gafuri and Riccardo Quinto (eds.), Predicazione e società nel Medioevo: Rilessione etica, valori e modelli di comportamento. Proceedings of the xII Medieval Sermon Studies Symposium, Padova, 14–18 luglio 2000, Centro studi Antoniani 35 (Padua, 2002), pp. 71–91; Franz Sedlmeier, Die laienparänetischen Schriften der Karolingerzeit: Untersuchungen zu ausgewählten Texten des Paulinus von Aquileia, Alkuins, Jonas von Orleans, Dhuodas und Hinkmars von Reims, Deutsche Hochschuledition 86 (Neuried, 2000), pp. 117–89; Alain Dubreucq, ‘Autour du De virtutibus et vitiis d’Alcuin’, in Philippe Depreux and Bruno Judic (eds.), Alcuin, de York à Tours: Ecriture, pouvoir et réseaux dans l’Europe du haut moyen âge, Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l’ouest 111:3 (Rennes, 2004), pp. 269–88. DVV conclusion, pp. 464–5. 3 Ibid., p. 465.

1

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Introduction militarily and politically, receiving the surrender of the Bretons in 799 and acting as a missus dominicus in 802.4 Alcuin was at the centre of Carolingian religious and political life, and made important contributions to two of Charlemagne’s key reform edicts.5 His many writings as a hagiographer, educator, biblical commentator and poet include several texts intended at least partly for a lay audience.6 His extensive correspondence also contains a number of letters addressed to laymen or groups including them.7 De virtutibus et vitiis was, in terms of circulation, by far the most successful of all Alcuin’s texts: more than 140 manuscripts of it survive.8 Copies were owned by two ninth-century lay nobles, Dhuoda and Eberhard of Friuli.9 A number of Carolingian authors reused Alcuin’s material for their own moral treatises and sermons.10 It was also translated into several vernacular languages and became the basis for Old English homilies and sermons, as well as the Middle English poem Speculum Gy de Warewyke.11 Why did this work, which most modern readers would consider dull and derivative, achieve such popularity? What can we learn from the wide circulation of this and similar moral texts? As I shall show, we can use these texts to study not so much how early medieval Franks behaved, as how they imagined themselves, particularly their masculinity and nobility. 4

5

6 7

8

9

10

11

See ARF 799, p. 108; Julia M. H. Smith, Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series 18 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 52–4. On Alcuin see Donald A. Bullough, Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation (Leiden, 2004); Depreux and Judic, Alcuin; and below, pp. 54, 64. On the audience for the ‘court poetry’ of Alcuin and others see Chapter 2, pp. 53–8. Alcuin, Epistolae 18, 33, 69, 98, 111, 122, 224, 302, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 49–52, 74–5, 112–13, 142, 159–62, 178–80, 367–8, 460–1. On these see Bullough, ‘Alcuin and lay virtue’, pp. 73–82. Paul E. Szarmach, ‘A preliminary handlist of manuscripts containing Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, Manuscripta 25 (1981), 131–40; Paul E. Szarmach, ‘The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, cap. xxvii–xxxv, with special reference to Vercelli Homily xx’, Mediaevalia 12 (1989), 13–41, at pp. 14–16. Pierre Riché, ‘Les Bibliothèques de trois aristocrates laïcs carolingiens’, Le moyen âge, 4th series 18 (1963), 87–104, at pp. 94, 99. On Dhuoda and Eberhard see below, pp. 28–30, 41–2. See DIL 3–6, col. 247; LM 4–6, p. 144; Richard Newhauser, ‘Towards modus in habendo: Transformations in the idea of avarice’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 106 (1989), 1–22, at pp. 18–20; Clare Woods, ‘Six new sermons by Hrabanus Maurus on the virtues and vices’, Revue Bénédictine 107 (1997), 280–306, at pp. 282–3; James C. McCune, ‘An edition and study of select sermons from the Carolingian Sermonary of Salzburg’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London (2006), pp. 210–11. Szarmach, ‘Preliminary handlist’, pp. 133–4 lists translations into Old Norse, Old Icelandic, Old English and Middle English; Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, p. 119 mentions a Middle High German version.

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Studying morality S tudying morality Alcuin’s concern about lay conversatio was not an isolated example. Strenuous attempts at religious reform from the time of Charlemagne onwards aimed to correct the behaviour of both lay and religious people. The reformers believed that all of society needed to be made truly Christian, with the laity as one speciic ‘order’ having its own suitable way of life.12 Alcuin’s text was the most inluential of several treatises addressed to noble laymen in the Carolingian period.13 Such lay mirrors were only one in a variety of genres aiming to instruct and guide elite audiences. Hans Hubert Anton’s work on moral instruction for rulers, for example, uses examples from letters, poetry, conciliar acts and mirrors for princes, while Katrien Heene’s survey of ‘edifying literature’ focuses on hagiography, moral tracts, sermons and homilies.14 This large corpus of Carolingian moral texts has often been ignored or dismissed by modern scholars, who dislike both its admonitory tone and its objectionable views on such topics as slavery (accepted) and homosexuality (condemned). Even within religious history and the history of philosophy, the study of morality, or more speciically of moral instruction and moral discourses, has often been neglected.15 More studies of lay morality in the Carolingian period have focused on a few texts, such as the works of Nithard and Dhuoda and the Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis.16 Franz Sedlmeier’s study of the Carolingian lay mirrors, meanwhile, provides a very detailed account of them and their sources, but gives little sense of their social context.17 There have been 12

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Pierre Toubert, ‘La Théorie du mariage chez les moralistes carolingiens’, Il matrimonio nella società altomedievale, 22–28 aprile 1976, 2 vols., Settimane 24 (Spoleto, 1977),Vol. i, pp. 233–85, at pp. 235–40; Rafaele Savigni, ‘Les Laïcs dans l’ecclésiologie carolingienne: Normes statutaires et idéal de “conversion”’, in Michel Lauwers (ed.), Guerriers et moines: Conversion et sainteté aristocratiques dans l’Occident médiéval (IXe–XIIe siècle), CNRS Collection d’études médiévales 4 (Antibes, 2002), pp. 41–92. On Carolingian reform movements and intellectual developments more generally see Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895 (London, 1977); Giles Brown, ‘Introduction: The Carolingian renaissance’, in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1994); Philippe Depreux, ‘Ambitions et limites des réformes culturelles à l’époque carolingienne’, Revue historique 304 (2002), 721–53. On these lay mirrors, see Chapter 2, pp. 36–42. Hans Hubert Anton, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonner historische Forschungen 32 (Bonn, 1968); Katrien Heene, The Legacy of Paradise: Marriage, Motherhood and Woman in Carolingian Edifying Literature (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), pp. 11–14. Sibylle Mähl, Quadriga virtutum: Die Kardinaltugenden in der Geistesgeschichte der Karolingerzeit, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 9 (Cologne, 1969), p. 1. On these texts, see Chapter 2, pp. 28, 41–2, 52–3. Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften.

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Introduction only a few wider studies of Carolingian lay morality, and these have not focused on the speciic practical demands being made on the laity.18 One important reason for studying such texts is as material for the history of mentalities. An analysis of moral instruction can provide several important insights into wider thought patterns. Firstly, their priorities are revealing: which moral issues were seen as most signiicant? What abuses were felt to require repeated condemnation, and what areas were tacitly ignored or little discussed? Secondly, what reasons were given for the particular moral norm being inculcated? Michel Foucault and Peter Brown, among others, have shown how many diferent moral meanings could be given to the same sexual norms.19 Such explanations again help illuminate the mental universe of the authors and audiences of moral texts. Finally, what social categories underlie the moral demands? Moral systems dominated by universal moral norms are a relatively recent development; earlier moral instruction normally expected diferent behaviour from diferent sexes, classes and ages. The targeting of some moral norms at particular social groups provides insight into how society was imagined to work. An important article by Patrick Wormald argued that eighthcentury Anglo-Saxon aristocrats who converted to Christianity had to make little change to their way of life.20 This book is partly an examination of whether the same was true for Frankish noblemen during the Carolingian reforms. To take this question a stage further, what can socially diferentiated moral norms tell us about a culture’s understanding of the meaning of masculinity and nobility? Cultural historians have shown the very varied moral norms that have been associated with ideas of masculinity: Aristotle, for example, thought that neither women nor slaves could properly possess andreia (manly courage), because of their defective reason.21 The ethical content of both masculinity and nobility in early medieval Francia is demonstrated by its vocabulary: an adverb such as viriliter (manfully) combines both objective description and subjective 18

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These include McKitterick, Frankish Church; Thomas F. X. Noble, ‘Secular sanctity: Forging an ethos for the Carolingian nobility’, in Patrick Wormald and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 8–36. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality.Volume 3:The Care of the Self, trans. Robert Hurley (New York, 1986); Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, Lectures on the History of Religions, n.s. 13 (New York, 1988). Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede, “Beowulf ” and the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy’, in Robert T. Farrell (ed.), Bede and Anglo-Saxon England: Papers in Honour of the 1,300th Anniversary of the Birth of Bede, Given at Cornell University in 1973 and 1974, BAR 46 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 32–95. Marguerite Deslauriers, ‘Aristotle on andreia, divine and sub-human virtues’, in Ralph M. Rosen and Ineke Sluiter (eds.), Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Mnemosyne Supplementum 238 (Leiden, 2003), pp. 187–211.

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Studying morality valuation.22 Similarly, the long tradition of ‘nobility’ as meaning both social status and a positive moral characteristic is relected in the multiple meanings of terms like nobilis and edel. A study of appropriate behaviour for male nobles, in contrast to expectations of other social groups, therefore ofers a useful approach to issues of masculinity and noble self-representation.23 Carolingian moral texts also allow insights into other areas, because of the particularly close connections between political and moral discourses in the period. Etienne Delaruelle claimed that political reform in the time of Louis the Pious became deined essentially as moral reform;24 more recently, Mayke de Jong has shown the key role of ideas of sin and penitence in this period.25 The same demands for universal moral self-scrutiny and confession are already visible in Charlemagne’s reign.26 Only Christian behaviour on the part of both ruler and subjects could ensure the safety and prosperity of the kingdom. Examining eighth- and ninth-century texts also shows the arbitrary nature of modern labels separating ‘religion’, ‘morality’ and ‘politics’. For example, in a chapter in De virtutibus et vitiis on justice, Alcuin included a substantial passage discussing the faults that judges (iudices) needed to avoid.27 Like much of Alcuin’s treatise, this was a reworking of earlier material: here, Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae.28 Alcuin’s chapter was not the only Carolingian text inluenced by Isidore’s passage. Very similar statements appear in the Admonitio generalis – a capitulary of Charlemagne from 789 – and also in a long poem by Theodulf , Paraenesis ad Iudices, written about Theodulf ’s experiences as a missus dominicus in 798.29 The 22 23

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On viriliter see Chapter 10, pp. 317–20. Other aspects of medieval culture have also been used to explore understandings of masculinity and the gender order. See for example Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Diference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge, 1993); Rachel Dressler, ‘Steel corpse: Imaging the knight in death’, in Jacqueline Murray (ed.), Conlicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, Garland Medieval Casebooks 25 (New York, 1999), pp. 135–67. Etienne Delaruelle, ‘Jonas d’Orléans et le moralisme carolingien’, Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 55 (1954), 129–43, at p. 130. Mayke de Jong, The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–840 (Cambridge, 2009). See Janet L. Nelson, ‘The voice of Charlemagne’, in Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (eds.), Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting (Oxford, 2001), pp. 76–88. DVV 20, cols. 628–9: see Chapter 5, p. 164. Iudex has multiple meanings: in discussions of legal cases it could refer to men both advising on and giving judgement. It was also used of oicials with nonlegal roles, such as the administrators of royal estates. In this book it is translated as ‘judge’ in legal contexts, without implying that such men necessarily had all the legal powers of modern judges. Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, pp. 140–1. Manfred Fuhrmann, ‘Philologische Bemerkungen zu Theodulfs Paraenesis ad iudices’, in Klaus Luig and Dieter Liebs (eds.), Das Proil des Juristen in der europäischen Tradition: Symposium aus Anlaß

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Introduction same moral expressions thus appear in the advice given to a nobleman by his spiritual adviser; in a satirical and political poem; and in a key text of Charlemagne’s programme of religious, political and social reform. Moral norms cannot be separated out from the ideology of the ruling elite of Francia; they are intrinsic to it. This book thus approaches Carolingian society, culture and politics via the lens of texts providing moral instruction to an audience of elite (noble) laymen.30 Such instruction was inevitably religiously based: all the moralists assume their audiences adhere to Christianity. Early medieval philosophy says nothing about ethics independently of theology until the twelfth century.31 Many patristic authors were inluenced by classical philosophy, especially Stoicism.32 Some Carolingian scholars, such as Sedulius Scottus and Haimo of Auxerre, collected classical extracts on ethical topics, and Sedulius used a number of these in his Liber de rectoribus christianis,33 but other moral texts intended for laymen only occasionally cite classical sources or exempla directly.34 Dhuoda’s use of Ovid is a rare exception.35 Modern discussions of early medieval moral norms sometimes use the binary contrast of ‘Christianity’ and ‘paganism’.36 Yet this distinction is problematic for the Carolingian empire, which was not a newly Christianised society, but one where the elite were attempting further religious reform. As Julia Smith puts it, ‘Throughout the Carolingian empire … the task was not conversion, in the sense of the baptism of pagans, but rather the upgrading of Christian observance, the elimination of inappropriate customs, and the substitution of authorised forms of devotion and morality.’37 In addition, simple labelling

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des 70. Geburtstages von Franz Wieacker (Ebelsbach, 1980), pp. 257–77. On Theodulf ’s poem and the capitularies, Chapter 2, pp. 55, 59–61. On deinitions of nobility, see below, pp. 21–5. John Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy (480–1150): An Introduction, 2nd rev. edn (London, 1988), p. 157. See for example Mähl, Quadriga virtutum; Brown, Body and Society, pp. 128–37. LRC 6, 8, 9, 14, 17, pp. 44–5, 47–8, 63–4, 77–9. D. E. Luscombe, ‘Peter Abelard and twelfth-century ethics’, Peter Abelard’s Ethics (Oxford, 1971), pp. xiii–xxxvii, at p. xix. LM 7:1, p. 190. On this quotation, see Peter Dronke, ‘Dhuoda’, in Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d. 203) to Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 36–54, at pp. 45–6. See for example Michael D. Cherniss, Ingeld and Christ: Heroic Concepts and Values in Old English Christian Poetry, Studies in English Literature 74 (The Hague, 1972); Wormald, ‘Bede, “Beowulf ”’. Julia M. H. Smith, ‘“Emending evil ways and praising God’s omnipotence”: Einhard and the uses of Roman martyrs’, in Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing (Rochester, NY, 2003), pp. 189–223, at p. 211.

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Studying morality of behaviour and attitudes as ‘pagan’, ‘pre-Christian’ or unchristian is problematic, due to the polyvalence of Christianity. The gospels’ ethical teachings had already been modiied by the later irst century.38 The Christianisation of the Roman empire had further impacts. Michelle Salzman demonstrated how late antique bishops shaped the rhetoric of Christianity to appeal to the status-consciousness of western aristocrats; Kate Cooper has explored conlicting views on asceticism among this Christianised senatorial elite.39 I have therefore aimed to outline the range of western Christian moral views on which Carolingian moralists could draw. Because I am using Carolingian moral ideals to illuminate wider phenomena, I have ignored metaethics in favour of speciic moral norms, which can be compared more easily across a range of genres. Most studies of such practical ethics in the Middle Ages have concentrated on a few topics, such as marriage, warfare and attitudes to money. They have often been concerned with tracing speciic long-term ethical developments, and have seen the early medieval period as only one, relatively unimportant, era.40 In contrast, this study covers a shorter period and three very broad moral areas (warfare, the use of power and sexual behaviour), allowing answers to the key issue of moral priorities. The three areas I have chosen do not exhaust the moral discourses directed at Frankish noblemen; other issues, such as the consumption of food and drink, can only be touched on in this book.41 Warfare, power and sexual conduct were, however, central to the conceptualisation of noble laymen. The basic distinction that the sources make between religious and secular men was that only the latter could bear arms and marry. Penances for laymen sometimes prohibited both bearing arms and marriage.42 Charlemagne asked worriedly in 811: ‘in what ways can those who have left the world be distinguished from those who still follow

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Ronald Preston, ‘Christian ethics’, in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics (Oxford, 1991), pp. 91–105. Michelle Renee Salzman, ‘Elite realities and mentalités: The making of a western Christian aristocracy’, Arethusa 33 (2000), 347–62; Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealised Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1996), pp. 68–143. See for example Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Gofart (Princeton, 1977); Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New Haven, 1986); Jean Gaudemet, Le Mariage en occident: Les Moeurs et le droit (Paris, 1987). See Chapter 7, pp. 236–9. Karl Leyser,‘Early medieval canon law and the beginnings of knighthood’, in Lutz Fenske,Werner Rösener and Thomas Zotz (eds.), Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (Sigmaringen, 1984), pp. 549–66, at pp. 556–63.

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Introduction the world; whether it is only that they do not bear arms nor are publicly married?’.43 Notker the Stammerer told Charlemagne’s great-grandson, Charles the Fat, an anecdote about Louis the German based on one about St Ambrose. Notker justiied this since Louis ‘was very similar to Ambrose, except in acts and matters without which earthly public life [res publica terrena] does not exist, that is marriage and the use of arms’.44 Similarly, noblemen had privileged access to certain forms of power, with an almost axiomatic equation of the ‘powerful’, the ‘noble’ and the ‘rich’.45 An examination of these key moral areas is therefore a particularly efective way of exploring the contrasting expectations made about lay noblemen and other social groups. Morality and real ity Two obvious problems arise in studying the impact of Carolingian moral norms. Firstly, given the relatively limited circulation of early medieval texts, did messages conveying these norms reach their intended audience? The second question is a broader one: does moral teaching in any period have an efect, or is it simply ignored by its recipients? The issue of audiences and sources will be discussed below;46 irstly, we need to consider the more general question of how historians can study the efect of moral norms. The assessment of efects is methodologically diicult: Charlemagne himself several times demanded that his missi should report back on whether his orders were being observed.47 If such reports were produced, they have not survived, but many historians have nevertheless been conident that Carolingian clerics and rulers were unsuccessful in their attempts to ‘impose’ new moral norms on the laity.48 Yet there are serious problems in assessing adherence to moral norms even in contemporary

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Capitula de causis cum episcopis et abbatibus tractandis 811, MGH Cap. i:72, p. 163, c. 4. On this text, see Nelson, ‘Voice’, pp. 80–8; and Rachel Stone, ‘“In what way can those who have left the world be distinguished?” Masculinity and the diference between Carolingian men’, in Kirsten Fenton and Cordelia Beattie (eds.), Intersections of Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the Middle Ages (Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 12–33. Notker 2:10, p. 66. 45 See Chapter 4, pp. 116–7. 46 See Chapter 2, pp. 27–68. Hubert Mordek, ‘Karolingische Kapitularien’, in Hubert Mordek (ed.), Überlieferung und Geltung normativer Texte des frühen und hohen Mittelalters, Quellen und Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter 4 (Sigmaringen, 1986), pp. 25–50, at p. 49. See for example Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500–900 (Philadelphia, 1981), p. 81: ‘These pleas [by Jonas and Hrabanus] for a more fundamental reform of sexual morality were generally unheeded’; Mordek, ‘Karolingische Kapitularien’, p. 48: ‘ein königliches Sisyphusbemühen um Korrektur, um Reform, dem den Umständen entsprechend ein dauerhafter Erfolg versagt bleiben mußte’.

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Morality and reality society, as seen, for example, in recent debates about the reliability of crime statistics. The scantier evidence for earlier periods increases the diiculty. Alan Bray, for example, has demonstrated the problems in using court records to determine the incidence of homosexual activity in sixteenth-century England.49 Carolingian texts provide only anecdotal evidence of moral ofences, along with general comments from moralists that ‘some’, ‘many’ or ‘very many’ people are committing particular sins, or behaving correctly.Were anecdotes of misbehaviour included in texts as representative or, conversely, mentioned precisely because they are atypical and therefore noteworthy? Similar problems arise with other evidence often used to claim that Carolingian reforms were inefective. The repeating of legislation in councils and capitularies has often been assumed to show the existence of widespread and ineradicable problems.50 Other historians, however, have pointed out that while legislation shows the continued existence of particular ofences, it provides no information on changes in their frequency.51 Using evidence of enforcement or its lack to assess the efect of moral norms is also problematic. The handful of speciic cases known in Carolingian times, and our incomplete knowledge of them, make generalisations and arguments from silence diicult. Suzanne Wemple, for example, makes broad claims about Carolingian rules on divorce not being rigorously enforced on the basis of a tenth-century hagiographical text. The Vita S. Deicoli does not mention any protests about Count Eberhard of Alsace abandoning his wife and marrying an abducted nun, but this may simply relect the text’s interest in showing the count as punished by God.52 Claims that the lack of explicit punishments in capitularies for usury meant it was not taken seriously have been countered by Harald Siems’ suggestion that some capitularies may have used an assumed standard ine for an ofence.53 Given such problems with the interpretation of enforcement, I have limited the conclusions I draw from negative evidence. However, I have 49 50

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Alan Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London, 1982), pp. 38–42, 70–5. See for example Mollat, Poor, p. 26; Egon Boshof, ‘Untersuchungen zur Armenfürsorge im fränkischen Reich des 9. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 58 (1976), 265–339, at p. 339. Franz J. Felten, ‘Konzilsakten als Quellen für die Gesellschaftsgeschichte des 9. Jahrhunderts’, in Georg Jenal and Stephanie Haarländer (eds.), Herrschaft, Kirche, Kultur: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Mittelalters. Festschrift für Friedrich Prinz zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 177–201. Wemple, Women, p. 86; Ex vita S. Deicoli, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS 15:2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 675–82, at p. 679, c. 13. Harald Siems, Handel und Wucher im Spiegel frühmittelalterlicher Rechstquellen, MGH Schriften 35 (Hanover, 1992), pp. 752–3.

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Introduction seen evidence of particular concern to enforce a norm, such as by exemplary punishments, or demands for the active seeking-out of ofenders, as noteworthy. A further issue is that enforcement is not necessarily vital for legislation. Max Weber argues that the social punishments for breach of a convention may actually be more severe than, and at least as efective as, any legal coercion.54 Indeed legislation in both medieval and modern times may not always have enforcement as its primary goal. James Brundage comments: Medieval sumptuary legislation, like these modern laws [on sex and gambling], sought at least as much to airm values as to modify behavior. Sumptuary laws, like sex and gambling laws, proclaim our collective devotion to moral behavior by deining immoral behavior as a crime. It need not follow as a consequence, however, that we will therefore change our habits and forego our pleasures by enforcing these bans vigorously. Sumptuary laws allowed urban authorities to visit exemplary punishment from time to time on blatant transgressions of communal morality.55

It is important to realise that even such symbolic legislation can have a signiicant efect on behaviour. A notable modern British example of this is Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which barred the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality. Although no-one was ever prosecuted, this act had a major impact on gay people and the discussion of sexual issues in schools.56 Research on medieval and early modern political ideology has similarly stressed how discourses themselves form part of the ‘underlying realities’ afecting what political actions are possible.57 All this makes the ‘efectiveness’ of moral norms an inadequate measure for their social impact. I have therefore deliberately approached the question of the impact of moral norms diferently, using Max Weber’s concept of the ‘validity’ of an ethical norm (the probability that action will be governed by it).58 As Weber comments, adherence to a norm is only a partial measure of its validity: It is possible for action to be oriented to an order in other ways than through conformity with its prescriptions … it is very common for violation of an order

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Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, trans. Ephraim Fischof et al., 3 vols. (New York, 1968),Vol. i, pp. 34, 320. James A. Brundage, ‘Sumptuary laws and prostitution in late medieval Italy’, Journal of Medieval History 13 (1987), 343–55, at p. 353. ‘Section 28 and the revival of gay, lesbian and queer politics in Britain’, Seminar held 24 November 1999, Institute of Contemporary British History (London). See for example John Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 6–7. Weber, Economy and Society,Vol i, p. 31.

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Morality and reality to be conined to more or less numerous partial deviations from it, or for the attempt to be made, with varying degrees of good faith, to justify the deviation as legitimate.59

Psychological experiments have also suggested the widespread existence of ‘neutralisation’ techniques, rationalisations of socially deviant behaviour that allow acts contrary to a person’s own values.60 As Mayke de Jong has shown, for example, many of Louis the Pious’ opponents claimed that their supposed inidelity to the emperor was really a higher form of idelity, supporting ideals that he himself had promulgated.61 Norms may also shape actions more indirectly. Warren Brown has examined the use of norms, including law codes, in early medieval property disputes. Such norms were inluential, but regarded less as authorities to be adhered to absolutely, than as instruments in negotiations;62 their inluence also depended on their being seen as ‘relevant or useful’.63 Christina Pössel has explored the possibility that the social identities of Frankish lay and clerical elites were themselves created and afected by their role in the receipt and transmission of capitularies and other normative texts. Acting as conduits of Carolingian reform ideas, their own sense of themselves as holders and wielders of power was liable to be subtly reshaped and developed.64 Focusing on the validity of norms means including as evidence a variety of ‘actions’ beyond actual moral or immoral practice. I have paid particular attention to evidence for the existence of opposing discourses, which go beyond a simple lack of adherence to a norm to ofer ideological opposition to it, or approval for those transgressing it. Difering views are visible on some moral topics in the period, and suggest a more limited validity of such norms.65 I do not, however, assume that statements of a moral position in Carolingian texts automatically presuppose the existence of contrary opinions: moralists apparently felt the need to state the blindingly obvious on occasion.

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Ibid., p. 32. David M. Bersof, ‘Why good people sometimes do bad things: Motivated reasoning and unethical behavior’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (1999), 28–39. De Jong, Penitential state, pp. 108–9, 212. Warren Brown, ‘The use of norms in disputes in early medieval Bavaria’, Viator 30 (1999), 15–39, at pp. 19–21. Ibid., p. 39. Christina Pössel, ‘Authors and recipients of Carolingian capitularies, 779–829’, in Richard Corradini et al. (eds.), Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 12 (Vienna, 2006), pp. 253–74 at pp. 272–3. See for example Chapter 9, pp. 288–9 (on marital sex).

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Introduction Two problems remain. One is whether particular texts represent widely accepted moral views (i.e. norms) or idiosyncratic opinions.66 I have therefore included as wide a range of texts as possible, and have seen the expression of collective moral views in capitularies or the decrees of church councils as particularly signiicant.67 A more diicult issue is whether texts referring to a particular norm show its continuing validity, or whether morality is simply being used as disposable political rhetoric. Much recent scholarship has stressed the polemical nature of many Carolingian texts: can we therefore see their moral comments as relecting anything more than immediate political advantage? Mayke de Jong’s work provides an answer, showing how a long-lasting shared moral consensus provided a framework in which partisan rhetoric could be deployed efectively. Repeated appeals were made to common moral norms by writers of polemic.68 It is also important to note a strong and widespread Frankish conviction about the timeless nature of moral advice.The quarrying of older texts for norms and arguments was standard practice for all Carolingian moralists.Their frequent repeating of biblical, classical and late antique moral principles shows that such norms were seen as eternally applicable. Attempts by opponents to deny the continuing validity of such principles are rare, although Old Testament sexual and marital norms were sometimes uncomfortable territory.69 In contrast to de Jong’s focus on textual responses to a few years of Louis’ reign, in a wide-ranging survey like this one it is not feasible to examine the speciic context of every text that I cite. Instead, my main concern is continuities in moral thought, the commonplaces that make up the bulk of much moral rhetoric. I have looked particularly for norms that are widely repeated by diferent moralists across generations and between genres. I have also aimed to identify what might be called the negative moral commonplaces: Christian moral ideas that are repeatedly ignored. It is reasonable to use arguments from silence concerning speciic biblical passages (for example the simile of the camel and the eye of the needle)70 66

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This problem has frequently been raised in discussions of classical moral norms: see for example Matthew Fox, ‘The constrained man’, in Lin Foxhall and John Salmon (eds.), Thinking Men: Masculinity and Its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition, Leicester–Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 7 (London, 1998), pp. 6–22. On the collective nature of such works, see Chapter 2, pp. 60–2. De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 3–6. See Chapter 8, p. 262 (incest); p. 268 (polygamy). Rachel Stone, ‘The invention of a theology of abduction: Hincmar of Rheims on raptus’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60 (2009), 433–48, at pp. 441–5. See Chapter 7, pp. 218–9.

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Morality and reality or the works of patristic writers who are frequently cited by Carolingian authors, such as Augustine, Gregory the Great and Jerome. Pierre Toubert comments, for example, that Jerome’s treatises against marriage were copied in the ninth century, but not reused by Carolingian authors.71 Such silences provide another way of approaching the key question of the moral priorities of the Carolingian reform movement. It is only once this background of the banal and the unthinkable is mapped, that more distinctive or rare moral views stand out, which I have explored in more detail. I have also looked for clusters of texts on a particular topic from one brief period, which may indicate the existence of moral panics. Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda deine these by ive criteria: (1) a heightened level of concern over the behaviour of a particular group; (2) an increased level of hostility towards that group; (3) widespread consensus in a society or some section of it that a threat is real, substantial and caused by the wrongdoing group; (4) a disproportionate response to the behaviour, seeing it as carried out by far more individuals than is the case and causing or threatening far more damage than is realistically the case; (5) the volatility of the moral panic, which emerges and subsides relatively quickly.72 The problem for historians is assessing whether the response to any situation was disproportionate or not. Mayke de Jong’s argument for an outbreak of moral panic at Louis the Pious’ court from 827 onwards is convincing, however.73 This was not the irst time that a series of military defeats or natural disasters had led to soul-searching on the part of the ruling elite and attempts to placate God: there are parallels from Charlemagne’s reign.74 It was only in the 820s, however, that the situation spiralled out of control, leading to the deposition of a ruler. In a few other cases, such as concerns over ‘sodomy’, clustering of references, combined with few mentions of speciic culprits, also strongly suggests a moral panic.75 My analysis of moral norms does not claim either to provide a complete account of the state of Carolingian society’s morals, or to show 71

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Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, pp. 252–3. Jonas of Orléans’ work is a partial exception: see Chapters 8 and 9, p. 286. Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics:The Social Construction of Deviance (Oxford, 1994), pp. 33–41. De Jong, Penitential State, p. 157. See for example François-Louis Ganshof, ‘Une crise dans le règne de Charlemagne, les années 778 et 779’, Mélanges d’histoire et de littérature oferts à Charles Gilliard (Lausanne, 1944), pp. 133–45; Janet L. Nelson, ‘The siting of the Council at Frankfort: Some relections on family and politics’, in Rainer Berndt (ed.), Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794: Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur. Akten zweier Symposien (vom 23. bis 27. Februar und vom 13. bis 15. Oktober 1994) anlässlich der 1200-Jahrfeier der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1997),Vol. i., pp. 149–65. See Chapter 7, pp. 294–5.

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Introduction the details of how political and moral factors interacted in speciic events. What it provides instead is a broader picture than previously of what might be called Frankish ‘received ideas’ on the behaviour of lay noblemen. S tudying mascul inity De virtutibus et vitiis was addressed to one man, but envisages a wider audience. Alcuin imagines this audience as male: he tells his reader that he should want to have a good life as much as to take a good wife.76 Alcuin’s text was not unusual in this assumption: the noble ethos inculcated in so many Carolingian moral texts was exclusively male. Julia Smith points out the novelty of the tenth-century cleric Rather of Verona in addressing married women directly.77 To a historian of Carolingian women, the lack of moral advice directed speciically at women is frustrating, although some ideas of expected female behaviour can still be gleaned.78 A historian of Carolingian masculinity arguably has a surplus of material. I have generally chosen to use the term ‘masculinity’ rather than ‘manliness’, since the latter term has so many extraneous Victorian connotations for British readers.79 ‘Masculinity’ is a modern word: the Oxford English Dictionary quotes examples from the 1860s onwards (and one from 1748), although ‘masculine’ had been used for ‘male’ from the fourteenth century.80 The study of masculinity is a relatively recent scholarly development, irst discussed by psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists.81 The historical study of changing ideas and expressions of masculinity developed only in the 1980s.82 Most research on historical masculinity has focused on the modern West, although masculinity in classical Greece 76 77

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DVV 14, col. 623. Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, p. 34. Cf. Julia M. H. Smith, ‘Gender and ideology in the early Middle Ages’, in R. N. Swanson (ed.), Gender and Christian Religion: Papers Read at the 1996 Summer Meeting and the 1997 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 34 (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 51–73, at pp. 71–2. I have not explored moral norms for Carolingian (noble) women myself, but have drawn on existing research on this topic, particularly Wemple, Women; Heene, Legacy; Valerie L. Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World (Ithaca, NY, 2009). ‘Manliness’ is the preferred term of some authors: see for example Mathew Kueler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago, 2001), p. 5. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn, s.v. ‘masculinity’. R.W. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 23–40 summarises the historical development of the study of gender. See for example Michael S. Kimmel, ‘The contemporary “crisis” of masculinity in historical perspective’, in Harry Brod (ed.), The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies (Boston, MA, 1987), pp. 121–53.

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Studying masculinity and Rome has also attracted considerable scholarly interest.83 Scholars of the medieval period have recently begun to examine the topic, and a number of essay collections, as well as several monographs, have now been produced on medieval masculinity. The focus, however, has been largely on the central and later Middle Ages.84 There are still tensions within the ield as to exactly what is being studied. Alan Bray, reporting in 1998 on two conferences on the ‘history of manliness’, saw three diferent impulses at work. Firstly was ‘people’s history’ (an attempt to recover the history of marginalised groups of men), secondly ‘gender history’ (studying the concepts of manliness held in past societies) and thirdly ‘faultline history’ (exploring how conceptions of gender have been used to secure material ends).85 This work falls into the second and third categories: my emphasis is on masculinity (ideas of what men ought to be like) as an ideology. It is only by understanding a society’s existing conceptions of masculinity that we can see how they are manipulated; in turn this self-interested manipulation feeds back altered gender conceptions into that society. Unfortunately, the limits of early medieval sources make it impossible to explore one aspect of these interactions between ideology and reality, the subjective experience of masculinity by men.86 Studying masculinity remains controversial. Discussions of gender have sometimes been dismissed as marginal or of ‘modish irrelevance’.87 It has 83

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See for example Maud W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 1995); Foxhall and Salmon, Thinking Men; Virginia Burrus, ‘Begotten, not made‘: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford, 2000). Essay collections include Clare A. Lees (ed.), Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, Medieval Cultures 7 (Minneapolis, 1994); Jefrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (eds.), Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, New Middle Ages 4 (New York, 1997); Murray, Conlicted Identities; Dawn M. Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe (London, 1999); Leslie Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2004); Patricia H. Cullum and Katherine J. Lewis (eds.), Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages (Cardif, 2004). Only the collections edited by Hadley, and by Brubaker and Smith, have much to say on continental Europe before the year 1000. Most studies on masculinity in Anglo-Saxon England have concentrated on literary texts, with the exception of Allan Frantzen’s work on penitentials (see for example Allen J. Frantzen, Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from ‘Beowulf’ to ‘Angels in America’ (Chicago, 1998). Work on Norse masculinity has a longer history: see for example Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society, trans. Joan Turvill-Petre (Odense, 1983); Carol J. Clover, ‘Regardless of sex: Men, women and power in early northern Europe’, Speculum 68 (1993), 363–87. Alan Bray, ‘A history of manliness?’, History Workshop Journal 45 (1998), 301–3. On male subjectivity see for example Michael Roper, ‘Slipping out of view: Subjectivity and emotion in gender history’, History Workshop Journal 59 (2005), 57–72. John Tosh, ‘What should historians do with masculinity? Relections on nineteenth-century Britain’, History Workshop 38 (1994), 179–202, at pp. 179–80. Such reactions are still found in some scholarly circles today.

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Introduction also been argued that the study of masculinity is unnecessary since men have always been the main focus of historical study.88 Some sociologists and historians have even questioned whether the concept of masculinity is meaningful for all societies.89 Given these issues, why should an early medievalist choose to examine masculinity? More theoretical studies of gender can provide answers. Firstly, it is not an arbitrary imposition to discuss early medieval masculinity. As Gayle Rubin puts it: ‘Every society … has a sex/gender system – a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention.’90 Such arrangements can be very varied: Carol Clover argues for early Norse society as having only one gender.91 However, the use of Latin terms such as efeminatus and virago in Carolingian texts suggests categories of maleness and femaleness, involving both biology and behaviour, that are less alien to modern thought. Masculinity as an ideology of how men ought to behave is also clearly culturally speciic: Daniel Boyarin, for example, shows traditional Ashkenazi Jewish thought as having an image of the ideal man that difered greatly from that of non-Jewish European contemporaries.92 Moreover, studies of morality almost invariably involve gender, since they are so closely linked in most societies. In one direction, gender constrains behaviour: in many western cultures men are supposed to behave in one way, women in another, and those who fail to do so castigated as ‘unmanly’ or ‘unfeminine’. Yet Judith Butler’s ideas about the ‘performativity’ of gender suggest that the relationship is twoway.93 Someone’s gender does not simply exist, but is created only as

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On responses to this point, see Michael Roper and John Tosh, ‘Introduction: Historians and the politics of masculinity’, in Michael Roper and John Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London, 1991), pp. 1–24, at pp. 6–7. The concern still remains: see for example Bryce Traister, ‘Academic Viagra: The rise of American masculinity studies’, American Quarterly 52 (2000), 274–304, at p. 282. Jef Hearn,‘Is masculinity dead? A critique of the concept of masculinity/masculinities’, in Máirtin Mac an Ghaill (ed.), Understanding Masculinities: Social Relations and Cultural Arenas (Buckingham, 1996), pp. 202–17, at pp. 208–10. Gayle Rubin, ‘The traic in women: Notes on the “political economy” of sex’, in Rayna R. Reiter (ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women (New York, 1975), pp. 157–210, at p. 165. See Chapter 10, p. 321–2. Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley, 1997). Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990), p. 25: ‘gender proves to be performative – that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the deed.’

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Studying masculinity it is expressed.94 Underneath the armour of a manly knight may be a woman’s body.95 Appropriate behaviour is thus central to the construction of masculinity. This idea of gender as performance also counters one criticism of studying the history of masculinity: that it is irrelevant, since most men were unconcerned about their own masculinity, simply taking it for granted. The metaphor of ‘performance’ implies that a role can be played ‘correctly’ even without fully conscious thought; such an internalisation may in fact aid the performance. Gender is also a ‘useful category of historical analysis’, as Joan Scott’s inluential article puts it. Scott’s deinition of gender is twofold: ‘gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power’.96 Scott’s emphasis on the symbolic role of gender has been conirmed by numerous studies showing the use of gender to signify and legitimate power, from images of the king as father of the nation, to attempts to justify empire by viewing colonial subjects as feminised and needing government.97 A discussion of moral ideas about power can avoid gender only with diiculty. Finally, studies of medieval masculinity are particularly useful because they challenge assumptions about masculinity developed by scholars of the contemporary world. Studies have often suggested the simultaneous existence of multiple masculinities within one society. ‘Men’ do not form a single category: instead groups of men diferentiate themselves from other men, as well as from women, via ideologies and institutions. These diferent masculinities are not equivalent, but relect power relations and social pressures, and in turn afect subjective identities.98 94

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Ibid.: ‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results.’ On cross-dressing in the Middle Ages, see Vern L. Bullough,‘Cross dressing and gender role change in the Middle Ages’, in Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (eds.), Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1696 (New York, 1996), pp. 223–42. Joan W. Scott, ‘Gender: A useful category of historical analysis’, American Historical Review 91 (1986), 1053–75, at p. 1067. See for example John Rosselli,‘The self-image of efeteness: Physical education and nationalism in nineteenth-century Bengal’, Past and Present 86 (1980), 121–48; Christopher Fletcher, ‘Manhood and politics in the reign of Richard II’, Past and Present 189 (2005), 3–39; Teresa R. Ramsby and Beth Severy-Hoven, ‘Gender, sex, and the domestication of empire in art of the Augustan age’, Arethusa 40 (2007), 43–71. Tim Carrigan, Bob Connell and John Lee, ‘Hard and heavy: Towards a new sociology of masculinity’, in Michael Kaufman (ed.), Beyond Patriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, Power, and Change (Toronto, 1987), pp. 139–92, at pp. 178–9; Dawn M. Hadley, ‘Introduction: Medieval masculinities’, in Hadley (ed.), Masculinity, pp. 1–18.

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Introduction Many scholars of modern masculinity have identiied a pattern in which one dominant masculinity is constructed in opposition to a number of subordinate masculinities. The sociologist Robert Connell characterised this dominant form of masculinity as ‘hegemonic’, seeing it as a culturally exalted model, sustained by a large number of men, even though it may only correspond to the actual characters of a few men.99 Although Connell’s model has been adopted by some scholars of earlier periods,100 the Middle Ages, with its institutional split of the male world along clerical–lay lines, reveals societies where there was no one dominant form of masculinity, but contrasting and competing forms.101 As this book will show, Carolingian concepts of masculinity can also confound some of our preconceptions about medieval masculinity. I have not followed some of the more radical gender theorists, who argue that biological sex is also a socially constructed classiication.102 When studying Carolingian Francia, the binary categories of ‘male’– ‘female’ and ‘man’–‘woman’ are relatively unproblematic. Texts normally distinguish, at least implicitly, between men and women, and references to people of ambiguous biological sex, such as hermaphrodites or eunuchs, are rare, in contrast to societies such as Byzantium.103 Some scholars have argued that medieval and early modern medical views on sexual difference afected society’s understanding of masculinity.104 Their research, however, has not yet demonstrated either that such medical concepts were widely known, or that such ‘scientiic’ views were accepted by their audience.105 More research is still needed on the early medieval audiences of medical texts to justify such approaches.106

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Tosh, ‘What should historians’, p. 191; Carrigan, Connell and Lee, ‘Hard and heavy’, pp. 179–80, Connell, Gender and Power, pp. 183–8. See for example Kueler, Manly Eunuch, pp. 4–6, who uses the concept of hegemonic masculinity for late antiquity without demonstrating that any particular masculine ideal was hegemonic. Hadley, ‘Introduction’, pp. 4–6. See for example Butler, Gender Trouble, pp. 6–7, Holt N. Parker, ‘The myth of the heterosexual: Anthropology and sexuality for classicists’, Arethusa 34 (2001), 313–62, at pp. 326–30. See for example Kathryn M. Ringrose, The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium (Chicago, 2003). For attempts to explain views on gender based on contemporary medical knowledge, see for example Jo Ann McNamara,‘The Herrenfrage:The restructuring of the gender system, 1050–1150’, in Lees, Medieval Masculinities, pp. 3–29, at pp. 9–10; Mark Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England, Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture 10 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 14. This was pointed out by Laura Gowing, ‘Early modern gender history: New horizons?’, History Workshop Journal 45 (1998), 283–90, at p. 285. Cadden, Meanings, the most substantial work on the topic, treats the early Middle Ages only in passing (pp. 46–53).

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Masculinity and ‘crisis’ I have taken account of other methodological issues in the study of gender. It is diicult to avoid some presuppositions about masculinity, but examining a number of broad moral topics lessens the risk of simply reading back current expectations of male behaviour. My topics also allow me to examine the power relations of elite men both with other groups of men, and with women of various social classes. Some scholars have complained of a focus on male self-representation in studies of masculinity.107 This is diicult to avoid for the early Middle Ages, but I have also used the few texts written by Carolingian women. Other scholars have worried that research on masculinity may deliberately exclude gay men.108 I inevitably look only at (supposedly) ‘heterosexual’ men; ‘homosexual’ culture is efectively invisible.109 However, two supposedly distinct forms of masculinity, lay and religious, existed in the Middle Ages, separated partly by sexual behaviour.This division prevented Carolingian moralists from seeing ‘practising heterosexuals’ as the only acceptable male pattern. Mascul inity and ‘crisis ’ One recurrent theme of historical studies of masculinity is of periods when masculinity is ‘in crisis’. The alleged current ‘crisis’ of masculinity has been paralleled by ‘crises’ identiied as occurring from antiquity through to the late twentieth century.110 Indeed some scholars have seen ‘anxiety’, ‘insecurity’ or ‘crisis’ as inherent to men in a male-dominated society.111 This seems implausible: if the struggle by men to retain their privileged position intrinsically creates anxiety, why does the same not apply to the upper classes as a whole? Yet if there is not a permanent ‘crisis in masculinity’, how can speciic times of crisis be recognised?

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Konstantin Dierks, ‘Men’s history, gender history or cultural history?’, Gender and History 14 (2002), 147–51 at p. 150. Traister, ‘Academic Viagra’, p. 275. For a discussion of the problem of using the terms ‘homosexual’ and ‘heterosexual’ for the early Middle Ages, see Chapter 9, pp. 280–1. For studies seeing an actual or potential ‘crisis’ in early medieval masculinity see Smith, ‘Gender and ideology’, pp. 58–9; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Monks, secular men and masculinity, c. 900’, in Hadley, Masculinity, pp. 122–42. For other periods see for example Kueler, Manly Eunuch; McNamara, ‘Herrenfrage’; Kimmel, ‘Contemporary “crisis”’. Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity, p. 3: ‘anxiety is an inevitable product of patriarchy at the same time as it contributes to the reproduction of patriarchy’. Tosh, ‘What should historians’, p. 192: ‘Masculinity is insecure in two senses: its social recognition depends on material accomplishments which may not be attainable; and its hegemonic form is exposed to resistance from both women and subordinated masculinities. (There is a third sense in which masculinity tends to insecurity, arising out of its psychic constitution …).’

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Introduction One approach has been examining individual case-studies of men in crisis.112 However, the existence of such men is not automatically a sign of masculinity in crisis: it is not just men, after all, who have crises.113 Some early medieval hagiography uses the topos of personal crises precipitating conversion to Christianity or the religious life.114 Some scholars have therefore argued that crises in masculinity must be linked to an altered gender order.115 Unfortunately, there is no consensus about such changes: Judith Bennett is sceptical about supposed ‘transformations’ of women’s history, while Julia Smith does see change in women’s lives between 300 and 800, despite some fundamental constants. Suzanne Wemple argues for a (negative) change in the gender order from the Merovingian to the Carolingian period, a view that Katrien Heene implicitly rejects.116 I have therefore adopted a third approach to ‘masculinity in crisis’, which emphasises the role of discourses.117 In particular, I draw on Sally Robinson’s insight: Announcements of crisis, both direct and indirect, are performative, in the sense that naming a situation as a crisis puts into play a set of discursive conventions and tropes that condition the meanings that event will have. A crisis is ‘real’ when its rhetorical strategies can be discerned and its efects charted: the reality of a particular crisis depends less on hard evidence of actual social trauma or do-ordie decision-making than on the power of language, of metaphors and images, to convincingly represent that sense of trauma and turning point.118

In this sense, a crisis exists whenever enough people believe it does. Such views are clearly expressed in several inluential classical and medieval texts, which claim either that men have become efeminised,119 or that 112

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See for example Norma Clarke, ‘Strenuous idleness: Thomas Carlyle and the man of letters as hero’, in Michael Roper and John Tosh, Manful assertions, pp. 25–43; Nelson, ‘Monks’. Small children are particularly prone to them. See for example VB 2, p. 201; VA 7–13, cols. 1511–15. Toby L. Ditz, ‘The new men’s history and the peculiar absence of gendered power: Some remedies from Early American gender history’, Gender and History 16 (2004), 1–35, at p. 20. Judith M. Bennett, ‘Confronting continuity’, Journal of Women’s History 9 (1997), 73–94; Julia M. H. Smith, ‘Did women have a transformation of the Roman world?’, Gender and History 12 (2000), 552–71, at pp. 565–6; Wemple, Women, pp. 189–97; Heene, Legacy. Frank Mort, ‘Crisis points: Masculinities in history and social theory’, Gender and History 6 (1994), 124–30, at pp. 124–5. Sally Robinson, Marked Men:White Masculinity in Crisis (New York, 2000), p. 10. See for example Carlin Barton, ‘All things beseem the victor: Paradoxes of masculinity in early imperial Rome’, in Richard C. Trexler (ed.), Gender Rhetorics: Postures of Dominance and Submission in History, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 113 (Binghamton, NY, 1994), pp. 83–92; Conrad Leyser, ‘Cities of the plain: The rhetoric of sodomy in Peter Damian’s “Book of Gomorrah”’, Romanic Review 86 (1995), 191–211.

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Deining lay nobles existing models of ideal male behaviour must be abandoned completely.120 The most productive approach to any Carolingian ‘crisis of masculinity’ is therefore to look for the existence of similar rhetoric. De f ining lay noble s Like many Carolingian moral texts, De virtutibus et vitiis was addressed to a man of high social status. Donald Bullough claimed: ‘To the mass of the population, to the laity at large, after 789 [the date of the Admonitio generalis] Alcuin has nothing to ofer.’121 Thomas Noble also notes the elitist nature of reformers’ moralising, while stressing the exemplary role expected from the laymen addressed.122 The social and political signiicance of the Carolingian secular elite, and their post-Carolingian descendants, makes them an obvious subject of scholarly interest.123 Much work in the last ifty years has focused on analysis of family structures and consciousness, but there has also been recent interest in ‘noble’ values and behaviour, and the role of courts in inculcating these.124 Discussions, however, have been complicated by uncertainty about how best to deine this elite: questions about the existence of a ‘nobility’ in the Early Middle Ages, as well as the origins and privileges of the ruling classes, have long preoccupied scholars.125 Chris Wickham has identiied six criteria for the membership of a ‘broad aristocratic stratum’ in the early Middle Ages: ‘distinction of 120

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See for example Kueler, Manly Eunuch; Bernard of Clairvaux, De laude novae militiae, ed. J. Leclercq and H.-M. Rochais, Sancti Bernardi opera.Vol 3:Tractatus et opuscula (Rome, 1963), pp. 213–39. Bullough, ‘Alcuin and lay virtue’, p. 81. Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, pp. 12–13, 31. For overviews of the research on early medieval nobles see Timothy Reuter, ‘Introduction’, in Timothy Reuter (ed.), The Medieval Nobility: Studies on the Ruling Classes of France and Germany from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century, Europe in the Middle Ages, Selected Studies 14 (Amsterdam, 1978); Timothy Reuter, ‘The medieval nobility in twentieth-century historiography’, in Michael Bentley (ed.), Companion to Historiography (London, 1997), pp. 177–202; Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘(Weltliche) Eliten: Adelsforschung in der deutschen Historiographie’, Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris, http://lamop-dev.univ-paris1.fr/IMG/pdf/Goetz.pdf; François Bougard, Dominique Iogna-Prat and Régine Le Jan (eds.), Hiérarchie et stratiication sociale dans l’Occident médiéval (400–1100), Collection haut moyen âge 6 (Turnhout, 2008). See for example Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘“Nobilis”: Der Adel im Selbstverständnis der Karolingerzeit’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 70 (1983), 153–91; Régine Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc (VIIe– Xe siècle): Essai d’anthropologie sociale, Histoire ancienne et médiévale 33 (Paris, 1995); Janet L. Nelson, ‘Nobility in the ninth century’, in Anne J. Duggan (ed.), Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins,Transformations (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 43–51; Matthew Innes, ‘“A place of discipline”: Carolingian courts and aristocratic youth’, in Catherine Cubitt (ed.), Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages:The Proceedings of the First Alcuin Conference, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 3 (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 59–76. Reuter, ‘Medieval nobility’ gives a good introduction.

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Introduction ancestry; landed wealth; position in an oicial hierarchy; imperial or royal favour … recognition by other political leaders; and lifestyle’.126 A ruling group clearly existed in Carolingian society: the sources use a variety of terms for such men and also refer to nobiles, both individually and as a group.127 However, historians have interpreted such texts very diferently, with some seeing nobilis as meaning little more than ‘free status’ and others considering the nobiles as akin to a caste, monopolising positions of power.128 Problems arise because of regional variations in the use of terms and also diferences between genres: Carl Hammer, for example, claims that in Bavarian deeds ‘the term “noble” (nobilis) often appears to be used only as a synonym for “freeman”’.129 The legal sources are also opaque. The term nobilis is not used in the Salic or Ripuarian leges, unlike some other barbarian codes, implying that nobiles did not have a separate legal status in the Frankish heartlands.130 A few Carolingian capitularies, however, do refer to the nobiles as a socially separate group.131 The Carolingian sources do not support Karl Ferdinand Werner’s claim of the continued existence of a nobility of service (Dienstadel) in the strict Roman sense, in which holding certain oices automatically made a man and his descendants nobilis.132 Although Werner shows the continuity of some late antique terminology, this need not imply continuity in institutions.133 If the Notitia de servitio monasteriorum from 817 can refer to the ‘senate of the Franks’ (senatus Francorum)134 it is dubious for Werner to assume that terms such as vir inluster and cingulum militiae

126

127

128 129

130

131 132

133

134

Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford, 2005), p. 154. Jane Martindale, ‘The French aristocracy in the early Middle Ages: A reappraisal’, Past and Present 75 (1977), 5–45, at pp. 13–14; Nelson, ‘Nobility’, p. 47. Cf. Martin Heinzelmann, ‘“Adel” und “Societas sanctorum”: Soziale Ordnungen und christliches Weltbild von Augustinus bis zu Gregor von Tours’, in Otto Gerhard Oexle and Werner Paravicini (eds.), Nobilitas: Funktion und Repräsentation des Adels in Alteuropa,Veröfentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 133 (Göttingen, 1997), pp. 216–56, at pp. 248–50 on a similarly wide range of terms in Merovingian sources. Reuter, ‘Introduction’, in Medieval Nobility, pp. 4–5. Carl I. Hammer, ‘Land sales in eighth- and ninth-century Bavaria: Legal, economic and social aspects’, Early Medieval Europe 6 (1997), pp. 47–76, at pp. 71–2. Hans K. Schulze, ‘Reichsaristokratie, Stammesadel und fränkische Freiheit: Neuere Forschungen zur frühmittelalterlichen Sozialgeschichte’, Historische Zeitschrift 227 (1978), 353–73, at pp. 371–2. Nelson, ‘Nobility’, pp. 45–50. On the Roman tradition, see Matthias Gelzer, The Roman Nobility, trans. Robin Seager (Oxford, 1969), pp. 27–39. Karl Ferdinand Werner, Naissance de la noblesse: L’Essor des élites politiques en Europe (Paris, 1998), pp. 185–6. MGH Cap. i:171, p. 350.

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Deining lay nobles have a single consistent meaning from the late Roman period through to the ninth century.135 Moreover, some texts are hard to reconcile with the existence of such a service nobility. A few ‘new men’ are visible in high clerical oice,136 but they are not described as ‘becoming’ noble.The famous comment by Thegan to Archbishop Ebbo of Rheims that ‘Louis made you free [liber], not noble, which is impossible’, makes little sense if the context would be a nobility of service. In such a system, Ebbo, as a high oice-holder, was nobilis, and Thegan would have had to contrast diferent kinds of ‘nobility’ in order to show Ebbo’s unworthiness.137 The frequent references to men and women as being nobilis or nobilissimus (very noble) by birth also suggest a status that was at least partly inherited, although probably not yet by ixed rules.138 Nobility was seen as a property of families rather than individuals, and references to an individual’s noble ancestry do not necessarily emphasise a strictly deined descent from a particular oice-holder.139 Nor did wealth alone create ‘nobility’.140 Discussions are complicated by the fact that Carolingian nobiles were not a homogeneous group. Gerd Tellenbach developed the concept of the Reichsaristokratie (imperial aristocracy), whom he characterised as having key political roles within the empire and exalted family backgrounds, and holding possessions and oices in several diferent parts of the empire.141 Werner showed that this group in Charlemagne’s reign included men with a variety of Roman, Merovingian and other Frankish ancestries.142 Yet although he saw this privileged group as ‘predestined’ for oice, other scholars have been justiiably sceptical about

135

136

137

138 139 140

141

142

See for example Werner, Naissance, pp. 210–25. On the changed meaning of ‘senator’ by the sixth century, see Frank D. Gilliard, ‘The senators of sixth-century Gaul’, Speculum 54 (1979), 685–97. Stuart Airlie, ‘The political behaviour of the secular magnates in Francia, 829–879’, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford (1985), pp. 27–32.There is no reliable evidence for high secular oice being held by those of low birth: see Chapter 5, p. 149. Thegan 44, p. 232. On the background to Thegan’s attack on Ebbo, see de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 76–9. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 32–3, 225–31. Ibid., pp. 34, 38–45. Franz Irsigler,‘On the aristocratic character of early Frankish society’, in Reuter, Medieval Nobility, pp. 105–36, at p. 105. Gerd Tellenbach, Königtum und Stämme in der Werdezeit des deutschen Reiches, Quellen und Studien zur Verfassungsgeschichte des deutschen Reiches in Mittelalter und Neuzeit, Band 7, Heft 4 (Weimar, 1939), pp. 41–59. Karl Ferdinand Werner, ‘Important noble families in the kingdom of Charlemagne: A prosopographical study of the relationship between king and nobility in the early Middle Ages’, in Reuter, Medieval Nobility, pp. 137–202.

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Introduction the extent to which such families formed a closed group.143 Tellenbach himself thought they did not.144 Recent studies of particular regions, meanwhile, show families with comparatively little land and power who are nevertheless called nobiles.145 Charters show even men connected to magnate families worrying that their descendants might sufer social decline or lose their freedom.146 Such evidence has led to the concept of ‘levels’ of the nobility.147 Yet though such diferences in power between nobiles undoubtedly existed, divisions between diferent ‘levels’ were probably blurred: even within the families commonly held to make up the Reichsaristokratie, there were diferences in power and status.148 Nor were such diferences static: Charles the Bald deliberately built up a small group of particularly privileged magnates in the 870s.149 The question of the existence of a Carolingian ‘nobility’ ultimately depends on deinitions. Timothy Reuter, following much German scholarship, wanted to distinguish a noble, with a legally deined status, from an aristocrat, who ‘exercises power as a result of being well-born in a socially rather than legally deined sense’.150 However this leaves unanswered both what counts as exercising power, and the position of particular women, monks or children who did not directly wield power, but whom the sources nevertheless call nobilis. Donald Bullough’s argument that nobilis is often best translated as either ‘well-born’ or ‘the leading men of a place or region’ has considerable merit: the term is best seen as indicating an inherited social position.151 Any clearer deinition may be impossible: Christina Pössel argues that, like many other social groups, the Carolingian aristocracy was probably deined at its core, rather than its edge. What counted were the characteristics of the ideal noble, and individuals were informally measured against this rather fuzzy set of attributes to determine their status.152

143 144 145

146

147 148 150 151

152

Ibid., p. 178; Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’, pp. 25–38, 52–6. Tellenbach, Königtum und Stämme, p. 59. Matthew Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400–1000, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series 47 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 82–5. Wolfgang Hartung, ‘Adel, Erbrecht, Schenkung: Die strukturellen Ursachen der frühmittelalterlichen Besitzübertragungen an die Kirche’, in Ferdinand Seibt (ed.), Gesellschaftsgeschichte: Festschrift für Karl Bosl zum 80. Geburtstag, 2 vols. (Munich, 1988),Vol. i, pp. 417–38, at pp. 433–4. Werner, ‘Important noble families’, p. 180. Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’, p. 52. 149 Ibid., p. 238. Reuter, ‘Medieval nobility’, p. 179. Donald A. Bullough, ‘Europae Pater: Charlemagne and his achievement in the light of recent scholarship’, English Historical Review 85 (1970), 59–105, at p. 76. Pössel, ‘Authors’, p. 271

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Deining lay nobles Reuter admitted that his distinction between an aristocracy and a nobility is diicult to sustain in practice in the early Middle Ages.153 I have chosen to use the terminology of nobility and nobles as the best way of relecting the double ethical and social meaning inherent in the term nobilis. I have also deliberately opted for a fairly minimalist view of nobility, counting as nobles only men who are either explicitly referred to as ‘nobilis’ in the sources, those who hold relatively high secular oices, such as counts, or the close relatives of such men. Hans Schulze has questioned the problematic view of some prosopographical researchers that all those who appear in the same charter or confraternity books are therefore of the same noble status.154 Wherever possible, I have avoided using examples of royal behaviour to illustrate lay attitudes or practices, taking as ‘royal’ the Carolingian rulers and their legitimate sons, but including among non-royal laymen those with more distant relations to the Carolingian dynasty, like Wala and Nithard. The one exception to this exclusion of royalty is Walter in Waltharius. Although he is a king’s son, during the main part of the poem he does not occupy that social position, nor has he been educated to rule. The exclusion of kings and princes may seem unusual, since such men have often been included in studies of lay mentalities and culture.155 Yet there are indications that the moral norms proposed to them were distinctive from those ofered to lay noblemen. Mirrors for princes, for example, difered from lay mirrors in their emphasis on the speciic tasks of rulers, and on self-rule as a prerequisite for the rule of others.The moral signiicance of kings was also heightened in these texts: unlike other laymen, their sins could potentially destroy a kingdom.156 Carolingian moralists were therefore particularly interested in instructing royal men: both Alcuin and Lupus of Ferrières, for example, were always ready to send unrequested letters of advice to kings.157 In contrast, Alcuin was more restrained in sending such letters to laymen. Only three of Alcuin’s eight letters to lay nobles give admonishments ‘out of the blue’, rather than in reply to a request for moral instruction: letter 69 (to an unknown dux 153 155

156

157

Reuter, ‘Medieval Nobility’, pp. 179–80. 154 Schulze, ‘Reichsaristokratie’, pp. 368–9. See for example Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 211–70; Wormald and Nelson, Lay Intellectuals. Rachel Stone,‘Kings are diferent: Carolingian mirrors for princes and lay morality’, in Frédérique Lachaud and Lydwine Scordia (eds.), Le Prince au miroir de la littérature politique de l’Antiquité aux Lumières (Rouen, 2007), pp. 69–86. See for example Alcuin, Epistolae 16, 18, 29–30, 61, 108–9, 123, 188, 217 (pp. 42–4, 49–52, 71–2, 104–5, 155–6, 180–1, 315–16, 360–1); Lupus of Ferrières, Epistolae 31, 37, 46, ed. and trans. Léon Levillian, in Loup de Ferrières: Correspondence, 2 vols., Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 10, 16 (Paris, 1927–35),Vol. i, pp. 140–7, 160–5, 192–7.

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Introduction and his wife), 122 (to an unknown Mercian patricius, possibly Brorda) and 302 to Arbert.158 Identifying elite laymen, as opposed to clerics, is relatively straightforward on the basis of oices held: lay abbots pose some problems, but Franz Felten’s work has proved valuable.159 Where there is no mention of a man’s oice, I have been forced to rely on more subjective factors, speciically marriage and participation in battle, as indicators of lay status.160 A few uncertain cases remain, but these have not had a major impact on my work.161 158

159

160 161

Alcuin, Epistolae, pp. 112–13, 178–80, 460–1. On Brorda see Donald A. Bullough, ‘What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?’, Anglo-Saxon England 22 (1993), 93–125, at pp. 117–18. Franz J. Felten, Äbte und Laienäbte im Frankenreich: Studie zum Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche im früheren Mittelalter, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 20 (Stuttgart, 1980). See for example Chapter 2, p. 53 on Angelbert. For Charles the Bald’s close followers, see for example Janet L. Nelson, ‘Public Histories and private history in the work of Nithard’, Speculum 60 (1985), 251–93, at pp. 290–1.

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Chapter 2

MORAL TEXTS A ND L AY AUD IEN CES

Any discussion of early medieval moral instruction must grapple with the question of whether lay noblemen actually read or heard the advice given. Were Carolingian moralists simply casting their work into a void? This issue has been approached from several diferent angles. Rosamond McKitterick and Janet Nelson have argued for relatively widespread lay literacy in the Carolingian period.1 Thomas Noble has assembled evidence for nobles receiving moral messages both orally and in writing.2 Many studies of individual Carolingian texts provide information on their audience and circulation. This chapter ofers a synthesis of this research, giving an overview of the wide range of moral texts that might inculcate norms in lay noblemen.3 My focus is on works written in Latin within the Carolingian empire in the period from c. 750 to c. 900: material from Italy and Bavaria before their conquest is therefore not included. I have not looked at the much smaller number of Continental vernacular texts from the period.4 The earliest texts discussed in this book are Boniface’s letters and the conciliar legislation of Carloman and Pippin III, the starting point for Carolingian attempts at reform. I have argued elsewhere that interest by writers in the moral instruction of lay noblemen declined after the mid 840s, judging by the writing of lay mirrors. A possible cause is the disillusioning efects of the civil war of 840–3, demonstrating that educating Carolingian lay noblemen 1

2 3 4

McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 211–70; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Literacy in Carolingian government’, in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 258–96. Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, pp. 24–30. A few texts that relate only to one particular moral topic are introduced in the relevant chapter. For studies of the moral ideals found in such literature, see for example G. Ronald Murphy, The Saxon Savior: The Germanic Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand (New York, 1989); Brian Murdoch, The Germanic Hero: Politics and Pragmatism in Early Medieval Poetry (London, 1996).

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Moral texts and lay audiences did not necessarily make them more peaceable.5 Yet although no lay mirrors were produced in the second half of the ninth century, a few other signiicant texts intended for a lay audience were written. The latest texts I have used are Regino’s Chronicon, from about 908; Hucbald of St-Amand’s Vita Rictrudis from 907; and the Vita Ganguli, from the end of the ninth century or the beginning of the tenth. I have not used two later texts included in some studies of Carolingian morality: the Praeloquia of Rather of Verona from 934 × 936 and the Vita Geraldi, written by Odo of Cluny in about 930.6 Although I drew on the Vita Geraldi for my thesis, I now see it instead as representing post-Carolingian attitudes.7 Ge nre s and the layman A useful starting point for analyses of lay noblemen’s moral instruction are the texts associated with Eberhard, the marchio of Friuli, and his wife Gisela. Eberhard was descended from a family that had been prominent in Neustria under Charlemagne; his own loyalty to Louis the Pious was rewarded by a countship in Italy and marriage to Louis’ daughter. His royal favour continued under Lothar I and Louis II, for whom he acted both as an envoy and as a military commander.8 We have considerable evidence of Eberhard’s interactions with leading reformers: Paul Kershaw has described his household ‘as a place of stringent self-improvement, the moral and corrective drives of Charlemagne’s renovatio shrunk to the scale of a single family’.9 Particularly important is the joint will of Eberhard and Gisela from 863 × 864, securing their dynastic future via donations of lands and goods to their nine children. The will includes a list of books to be distributed among their heirs and has often been used to study the couple’s religious and intellectual 5

6

7 8

9

Rachel Stone, ‘The rise and fall of the Carolingian lay moral elite’, in François Bougard, Régine Le Jan and Rosamond McKitterick (eds.), La Culture du haut moyen âge: Une question d’élites?, Collection haut moyen âge 7 (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 363–75. Rather of Verona, Praeloquia, ed. Peter L. D. Reid et al., Praeloquiorum libri VI, Phrenesis, Dialogus confessionalis, Exhortatio et preces, Pauca de vita Sancti Donatiani, Fragmenta nuper reperta, Glossae, CCCM 46a (Turnhout, 1984), pp. 3–186; Odo of Cluny, Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis, PL 133, cols. 639–710. For studies using these texts as evidence for Carolingian thought, see for example Nelson, ‘Monks’; Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’. See Chapter 10, p. 337. On Eberhard, his family and the will see Riché, ‘Les Bibliothèques’; Christina La Rocca and Luigi Provero, ‘The dead and their gifts:The will of Eberhard, count of Friuli, and his wife Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious (863–864)’, in Frans Theuws and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), Rituals of Power: From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, Transformation of the Roman World 8 (Leiden, 2000), pp. 225–80; Paul J. E. Kershaw, ‘Eberhard of Friuli: A Carolingian lay intellectual’, in Wormald and Nelson, Lay Intellectuals, pp. 77–105. Kershaw, ‘Eberhard’, p. 102.

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Genres and the layman culture. For my purposes Eberhard’s will and other texts associated with him provide vital glimpses into the types of material that a lay nobleman might ind interesting. What is striking is the wide range of genres visible. As already mentioned, Eberhard possessed a copy of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis.10 He and Gisela left several other moral handbooks to their children, including Augustine’s Enchiridion, the Admonitio ad ilium spiritualem attributed to St Basil, Martin of Braga’s Formula vitae honestae and Isidore of Seville’s Synonyma.11 They also owned another contemporary mirror: a text identiied only as ‘Smaragdus’ is probably that writer’s Via regia, a mirror for a prince, written in 811 × 814 and intended for Louis the Pious.12 Eberhard’s will reveals his ownership of several types of historical work: a history of the popes, the ‘deeds of the Franks’ (Gesta Francorum), as well as Orosius’ ‘Seven books of history against the pagans’. We know he was interested in Latin poetry: Sedulius Scottus addressed several poems to him, and Eberhard asked Hrabanus Maurus for a copy of his poem De laudibus sancti crucis, perhaps because his family possessed a relic of the True Cross.13 The important role given to various kinds of written law is also relected in Eberhard and Gisela’s library. In the 830s Eberhard asked Lupus of Ferrières to compile a collection of laws for him, which included copies of law codes for diferent peoples within the empire, and of capitularies issued by several Carolingian rulers.14 This work was among several law books left to Eberhard’s children.15 Despite these many cultural contacts, we have the text of only one letter sent to Eberhard (by Hrabanus Maurus), as well as references to two letters sent to him by Hincmar.16 This is probably only a fraction 10 11 12

13 14

15 16

See Chapter 1, p. 2. Kershaw, ‘Eberhard’, pp. 101–2; Riché, ‘Les Bibliothèques’, pp. 98–9. Ibid., p. 99; Smaragdus, Via regia, PL 102, cols. 933–71. I prefer the view of Anton, Fürstenspiegel, pp. 161–8 on the addressee and date of the Via regia to those of Otto Eberhardt, Via regia: Der Fürstenspiegel Smaragds von St Mihiel und seine literarische Gattung, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 28 (Munich, 1977), pp. 197–263 (who sees the work as written for Charlemagne in about 810) and Joachim Scharf, ‘Studien zu Smaragdus und Jonas’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 17 (1961), 333–84 (who dates it to 822 × 826 and thinks it was intended for Pippin I of Aquitaine). On this text, see also Jasmijn Bovendeert, ‘Royal or monastic identity? Smaragdus’ Via regia and Diadema monachorum reconsidered’, in Corradini et al., Texts and Identities, pp. 239–52. Kershaw, ‘Eberhard’, pp. 80–5, 89–91. On the probable contents of this codex see ibid., pp. 85–7; Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century. Volume 1: Legislation and Its Limits. (Oxford, 1999), pp. 31–5, 53–6. Kershaw, ‘Eberhard’, pp. 102–3. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 42, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 481–7; Hincmar of Rheims, Epistolae 46, 69, ed. Ernst Perels, MGH Epp. 8 (Berlin, 1939), pp. 26, 36–7.

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Moral texts and lay audiences of Eberhard’s correspondence, but the patterns of preservation of early medieval letters mean that the letters of the laity are rarely preserved.17 Eberhard and Gisela left to their eldest son, Unroch, a book entitled De utilitate penitentie. Whether this was actually a penitential, as has often been assumed, or instead a Carolingian tract about penance, is unknown. One possibility, for example, is Alcuin’s treatise letter Ad pueros sancti Martini, originally written for the young monks of St Martin’s at Tours, but also sent by him to Arn of Salzburg.The letter’s emphasis on the need for young men, in particular, to confess their sins and do penance has little that is speciically monastic about it.18 Whatever the exact contents of Unroch’s book, it testiies to the importance of penitence in Carolingian reform ideology.19 Eberhard also possessed a number of prayer books and other liturgical books, a couple of biblical commentaries, several sermon collections, the lives of St Martin of Tours and of the Eastern Fathers, and various practical works.20 The will itself reminds us of the moral norms implicit in many early medieval documents: it planned for the future via legacies to particular children, even as it airmed the couple’s status and piety by dwelling on the prestigious objects distributed.21 This brief discussion of Eberhard’s reading shows how many genres of material he consumed, although such genre boundaries were not tightly ixed or mutually exclusive.22 My focus in this book is on the contemporary texts that noblemen like Eberhard encountered, which provided practical norms for lay conduct. I have therefore concentrated on secular rather than religious poetry, and historical works dealing with eighthand ninth-century events. My focus is on lay mirrors, moral advice for rulers, historical writing, poetry, legislation and letters. Other genres are more marginal to my topic. Private prayer books, though important for understanding lay piety, do not concern themselves

17 18

19

20 21 22

See below, p. 63. On this text, see Michael S. Driscoll, ‘“Ad pueros sancti Martini”: A critical edition, English translation, and study of the manuscript tradition’, Traditio 53 (1998), 37–62; Bullough, Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation, pp. 386–90. See for example Abigail Firey, ‘Blushing before the judge and physician: Moral arbitration in the Carolingian Empire’, in Abigail Firey (ed.), A New History of Penance, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 14 (Leiden, 2008), pp. 173–200; Abigail Firey, ‘Useful guilt: Canonists and penance on the Carolingian frontier’, in Martin Brett and Kathleen G. Cushing (eds.), Readers, Texts, and Compilers in the Earlier Middle Ages: Studies in Medieval Canon Law in Honour of Linda FowlerMagerl (Aldershot, 2009), pp. 15–33; de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 260–70. Riché, ‘Les Bibliothèques’, pp. 97–100. See on this especially La Rocca and Provero, ‘The dead’. Fuhrmann, ‘Philologische Bemerkungen’, p. 277 describes Theodulf ’s Paraenesis ad iudices as ‘nicht so sehr als “Dichtung” oder “Literatur” wie als Publizistik’.

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Genres and the layman with practical morality.23 The Carolingian liturgical material we possess dealing with ‘secular’ matters, such as marriage and warfare, largely concentrates on royalty, not the lay nobility.24 The texts of surviving nuptial blessings have far more to say about brides than husbands.25 I have made little use of biblical exegesis, although a few lay people apart from Eberhard are known to have had access to such texts.26 While there have been interesting attempts to connect the selection of material in commentaries with the particular concerns of royal readers, it is harder to know what passages may have resonated with a lay audience.27 My use of hagiographical material has also been limited. Although Katrien Heene has argued that in the Carolingian period the audience for such texts increasingly became religious men and women rather than the laity, Rosamond McKitterick has demonstrated the existence of hagiographical texts commissioned by lay nobles and hagiographical manuscripts with possible lay connections.28 We also have evidence suggesting that passages from saints’ lives were intended to be read out to a lay audience, or formed the basis of sermons and homilies to them.29 Nevertheless, hagiography is of limited use for my theme, since its subjects are rarely laymen: the only early medieval lay saints with eighth- or ninth-century vitae are kings, hermits and martyrs.30 The Vita Ganguli, on a ‘martyred’ nobleman killed by his adulterous wife, provides valuable information on Carolingian attitudes to marriage and warfare.31 23

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On these see Michael S. Driscoll, ‘Penance in transition: Popular piety and practice’, in Lizette Larson-Miller (ed.), Medieval Liturgy: A Book of Essays, Garland Medieval Casebooks 18 (New York, 1997), pp. 121–63, at pp. 132–9; Jonathan Black, ‘Psalm uses in Carolingian prayerbooks: Alcuin and the preface to De psalmorum usu’, Mediaeval Studies 64 (2002), 1–60. Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, pp. 272–4; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Ninth-century knighthood: The evidence of Nithard’, in Christopher Harper-Bill, Christopher J. Holdsworth and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 255–66, at p. 259. Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianisation of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (Leiden, 1994), pp. 374–85. McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 262–5. On Carolingian exegesis, see Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (eds.), The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, Medieval Church Studies 3 (Turnhout, 2003). See for example Mayke de Jong, ‘Exegesis for an empress’, in Esther Cohen and Mayke de Jong (eds.), Medieval Transformations:Texts, Power, and Gifts in Context, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions 11 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 69–101. Katrien Heene, ‘Merovingian and Carolingian hagiography: Continuity or change in public and aims?’, Analecta Bollandiana 107 (1989), 415–28, at pp. 426–7; McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 241–3. Wolfert S. van Egmond, ‘The audience of early medieval hagiographical texts: Some questions revisited’, in Marco Mostert (ed.), New Approaches to Medieval Communication, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 1 (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 41–67. Jean-Claude Poulin, L’Idéal de sainteté dans l’Aquitaine carolingienne d’après les sources hagiographiques, 750–950, Travaux du Laboratoire d’histoire religieuse de l’Université Laval 1 (Quebec, 1975), pp. 157–8. Vita Ganguli martyris Varennensis, ed. Wilhelm Levison, MGH SRM 7 (Hanover, 1919–20), pp. 155–70. On this text see Alessandro Barbero, ‘Santi laici e guerrieri: Le trasformazioni di un

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Moral texts and lay audiences Paschasius Radbertus’ Vita Adalhardi (from around 826) and Hucbald of St-Amand’s Vita Rictrudis (from 907), provide some interesting details of their subjects’ lives before they entered religion.32 A few other Carolingian texts also have useful glimpses of lay life, such as Willibald’s vita of St Boniface, written at the behest of Archbishop Lull of Mainz in the early 760s.33 Einhard’s account from 830 of his acquisition of the relics of two Roman martyrs, SS. Marcellinus and Peter, informs us not only about the piety of a particular layman, but also about court culture and politics: Einhard deliberately distributed the text to an audience beyond the purely local.34 There has been increasing recent interest in Carolingian sermons. This book makes use of some of this research, but can only touch on the quantities of material that historians are now analysing and editing.35 Similarly, I have not myself looked at the moral norms that can be deduced indirectly from documentary sources, such as memorial books, charters and formularies. Scholars have increasingly used such texts for studies of both noble self-consciousness and the workings of power, and I have drawn considerably on their research.36

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modello nell’agiograia altomedievale’, in Giulia Barone, Marina Caiero and Francesco Scorza Barcellona (eds.), Modelli di santità e modelli di comportamento: Contrasti, intersezioni, complementarità (Turin, 1994), pp. 125–40; Monique Goullet, ‘Les Vies de saint Gengoul, époux et martyr’, in Lauwers, Guerriers et moines, pp. 235–63; Rachel Stone,‘Masculinity without conlict: Noblemen in eighth- and ninth-century Francia’, in Sean Brady and John H. Arnold (eds.), What Is Masculinity? Historical Dynamics from Antiquity to the Contemporary World (Basingstoke, 2011) pp. 76–93. Paschasius Radbertus, Vita sancti Adalhardi, PL 120, cols. 1507–56; Hucbald, Vita sanctae Rictrudis, PL 132, cols. 827–48. On VA see below, p. 52; on Hucbald see Julia M. H. Smith, ‘A hagiographer at work: Hucbald and the library of Saint-Amand’, Revue Bénédictine 106 (1996), 151–71. Willibald, Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldo, ed. Wilhelm Levison, MGH SRG 57 (Hanover, 1905). On the text see Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400–1050 (Harlow, 2001), pp. 61–4; James T. Palmer, ‘The “vigorous rule” of Bishop Lull: Between Bonifatian mission and Carolingian church control’, Early Medieval Europe 13 (2005), 249–76. Einhard, Translatio et miracula SS. Marcellini et Petri auctore Einhardo, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS 15:1 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 239–64. On the text, see Smith, ‘Emending evil ways’; Julia M. H. Smith, ‘Einhard: The sinner and the saints’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series 13 (2003), 55–77; de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 69–72. See for example Thomas L. Amos, ‘Preaching and the sermon in the Carolingian world’, in Thomas L. Amos, Eugene A. Green and Beverly Mayne Kienzle (eds.), De ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, Studies in Medieval Culture 27 (Kalamazoo, 1989), pp. 41–60; Woods, ‘New sermons’; McCune, ‘Edition’. The irst chapter of McCune’s thesis gives a good overview of the current state of research on Carolingian sermons. See for example Karl Schmid, ‘Zur problematik von Familie, Sippe und Geschlecht, Haus und Dynastie beim mittelalterlichen Adel: Vorfragen zum thema “Adel und Herrschaft im Mittelalter”’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 105 (1957), 1–62; Michael Borgolte, ‘Die Alaholingerurkunden: Zeugnisse vom Selbstverständnis einer adligen Verwandtengemeinschaft des frühen Mittelalters’, in Michael Borgolte, Dieter Geuenich and Karl Schmid (eds.), Subsidia Sangallensia 1: Materialen und Untersuchungen zu der Verbrüderungsbüchern und zu den älteren Urkunden des Stiftsarchivs St Gallen, St Galler Kultur und Geschichte 16 (St Gallen, 1986), pp. 287–322; Innes, State; Warren Brown, Unjust Seizure: Conlict, Interest, and Authority in an Early Medieval

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Genres and the layman Unlike many scholars of early medieval morality, I have made relatively little use of penitentials. These texts are irst attested in sixth-century Ireland and were associated with the rise of a new form of penance.37 The penitentials were personal reference handbooks and, alongside general advice for confessors and liturgical material, contained descriptions of sins and tarifed penances.38 We have a number of anonymous Continental penitentials from the eighth and ninth centuries, but their use was condemned by several Carolingian councils, starting from the council of Chalon-sur-Saône in 813.39 Ninth-century Frankish sources conirm what Payer calls ‘an oicial ecclesiastical proscription in regard to the penitentials’, but their continued usefulness to Carolingian clerics is also clear.40 One solution was to produce new texts, supposedly based on more authoritative material, such as patristic authors and canons, although in practice earlier anonymous penitentials were also among their sources.41 We have three such texts by named Carolingian authors. The irst is Halitgar of Cambrai’s De vitiis et virtutibus (written between 817 and 831), which combines a tract on virtues and vices with a penitential ritual and discussions of sins and their tarifs. We also have two letters of Hrabanus Maurus sent to Archbishop Otgar of Mainz (in 841 × 842) and Bishop Heribald of Auxerre (around 853), which provide answers to a series of questions on penance.42 It is debatable, however, whether such texts were really intended as penitentials.43 At least two ‘traditional’

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Society (Ithaca, NY, 2001); Alice Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages: Frankish Formulae, c. 500–1000, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series 75 (Cambridge, 2009). Pierre J. Payer, Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code 550–1150 (Toronto, 1984), pp. 7–8; Mayke de Jong, ‘What was public about public penance? Paenitentia publica and justice in the Carolingian world’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo (secoli Ix–xI), 11–17 aprile 1996, Settimane 44 (Spoleto, 1997),Vol. ii, pp. 863–904 discusses the problematic concept of ‘private’ penance, the term often used by historians to describe this new form. Cyrille Vogel, Les ‘Libri paenitentiales’, Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental 27 (Turnhout, 1978), pp. 60–94 includes a detailed listing of penitential texts produced before 1142. The corpus of eighth-to-eleventh-century penitentials from France, Italy and Spain is now being edited in the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, with three volumes already published. Carine van Rhijn and Marjolijn Saan, ‘Correcting sinners, correcting texts: A context for the Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori’, Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006), 23–40, at pp. 35–7. Payer, Sex, p. 59; Allen J. Frantzen, ‘The signiicance of the Frankish penitentials’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 30 (1979), 409–21. Adriaan Gaastra, ‘Penitentials and canonical authority’, in Corradini et al., Texts and Identities, pp. 191–203. Hrabanus Maurus, Poenitentium liber ad Otgarium, PL 112, cols. 1397–424; Poenitentiale, PL 110, cols. 471–94. On these texts see Raymund Kottje, Die Bußbücher Halitgars von Cambrai und des Hrabanus Maurus: Ihre Überlieferung und ihre Quellen, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 8 (Berlin, 1980). Van Rhijn and Saan, ‘Correcting sinners’, pp. 33–4.

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Moral texts and lay audiences penitentials (the Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori and the Paenitentiale pseudoGregorii) were produced after the 813 condemnations, but in Francia itself the production of such works died out after the irst half of the ninth century.44 Some scholars have made extensive use of the penitentials as evidence for early medieval morality, especially sexual morality.45 Others have been more sceptical about their evidential value.46 Carolingian penitentials are a problematic source for exploring lay moral instruction for several reasons. Firstly, it is not clear to what extent penitentials were used to educate the laity. It is likely that instruction in what constituted sin formed part of confession, but Theodulf of Orleans speciically stated that lay people should not be informed of all the vices in a penitential, lest it give them new ideas.47 Laymen and clerics other than bishops and priests were forbidden to have copies of penitentials.48 Secondly, the texts were continually reused and reworked.49 While this shows their continued vitality, it means no text can be seen as authoritative. No author or editor can be safely attributed to any penitential before Halitgar’s, nor did central authorities impose any particular penitential on priests.50 Instead each text relects the speciic concerns of its anonymous author. Finally, it is diicult to derive ethical views from penitentials. Their terse style means that they rarely give either authorities or reasons for their decisions;51 instead scholars have had to deduce the underlying moral norms. One approach is by identifying what were considered ofences.This is relatively straightforward, although there are problems in identifying some ofences,52 and some penitentials include penances for involuntary acts, such as unknowingly eating carrion.53 The signiicance of an act being omitted in the penitentials is more problematic. Some very serious crimes are not included, perhaps because atonement was 44 45

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Ibid., pp. 34–5. See for example Payer, Sex; Rob Meens, ‘Pollution in the early Middle Ages: The case of the food regulations in penitentials’, Early Medieval Europe 4 (1995), 3–19; Hubertus Lutterbach, Sexualität im Mittelalter: Eine Kulturstudie anhand von Bußbüchern des 6. bis 12. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1999). On the historiography, see Rob Meens, ‘The historiography of early medieval penance’, in Firey, New History, pp. 73–95. John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago, 1980), p. 182: ‘Even when they were applied they reached a rather small audience and hardly constitute an index of medieval morality’; Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, p. 267, refers to ‘petits livrets pénitentiels frustes et bizarres’. Payer, Sex, pp. 7–8, 56; Rob Meens, ‘Religious instruction in the Frankish kingdoms’, in Cohen and de Jong, Medieval Transformations, pp. 51–67, at p. 55. Vogel, Libri paenitentiales, p. 31. 49 Meens, ‘Religious instruction’, pp. 60–4. Vogel, Libri paenitentiales, pp. 95, 101. 51 Payer, Sex, p. 53. See for example ibid., pp. 46–7 on masturbation. 53 Meens, ‘Pollution’, pp. 8–9.

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Genres and the layman impossible: there is no mention of cannibalism, for example.54 There is considerable variance between the coverage of penitentials, suggesting that some may be incomplete.55 Some scholars have also attempted to measure the relative seriousness of sins based on the penance.There are considerable methodological problems in such attempts, and some scholars have rejected the method in total.56 Others have tried to infer the frequency of ofences, or the seriousness of moral concerns, by the number of canons referring to a particular problem,57 but this approach ignores both the method of compilation and the intended use of the penitentials.The repeated reworking of older texts meant that lists of ofences were often cumulative, with traditional canons retained for future inspiration.58 Penitentials were also necessarily detailed, in order to cover a wide range of eventualities;59 the large amount of material on sexual sins may simply relect the complex possibilities. Nor does the inclusion of an ofence necessarily imply that it was frequently being committed: guidance on the appropriate penance for rare ofences was also useful. The priest Regimbod asked Hrabanus Maurus about penances for an ofender who struck his wife and killed her unborn twins, one who had intercourse ‘irrationally’ with a bitch, or one who ‘often fornicated with cows’ (cum vaccis sepius fornicatus est).60 It seems unlikely that all these ofences were common. Pierre Payer summarises the historical importance of penitentials:‘The relative completeness of their treatment of sexual behaviour, their wide geographical distribution, their temporal span of inluence, and their contribution to later collections of ecclesiastical law make the penitentials key witnesses to the concerns of the Early Middle Ages.’61 Their speciic usefulness for assessing Carolingian moral norms, however, is far more limited. Given the problems in deducing morality from the penitentials, their oicial condemnation in the period and the availability of other more detailed sources, I do not feel it justiied to privilege them as evidence. Although I draw on previous studies of penitentials, I have not therefore analysed them myself. 54

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Vogel, Libri paenitentiales, p. 111. Rob Meens, ‘Politics, mirrors of princes and the Bible: Sins, kings and the well-being of the realm’, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998), 345–57, at p. 348 claims penitentials never mention the case of incest between father and daughter, although Payer, Sex, p. 32 gives one example. Payer, Sex, pp. 26, 125–6. 56 Ibid., pp. 129–34;Vogel, Libri paenitentiales, p. 104. Payer, Sex, pp. 52–3. See Meens, ‘Religious instruction’, pp. 60–2 about canons on pagan practices. Boswell, Christianity, p. 180. 60 Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 41, pp. 479–80. Payer, Sex, p. 5.

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Moral texts and lay audiences L ay mi rror s My overview of the main genres I have used begins with the lay mirrors, the most speciic examples of moral instruction given to lay noblemen. There has been some debate about what constitutes a lay mirror and whether such a genre exists.62 Most scholars, however, count as lay mirrors four texts from the late eighth and early ninth century. Along with Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis (discussed above), these are Paulinus of Aquilea’s Liber exhortationis (written for Eric of Friuli in around 796);63 Jonas of Orléans’ De institutione laicali (written for Matfrid of Orléans in the 820s);64 and Dhuoda’s Liber manualis (written for her son William around 841).65 I have also made some use of Hincmar’s De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis from 860 × 875, which, although addressed to Charles the Bald, discusses general moral behaviour, rather than demands speciic to rulers.66 Pierre Toubert places such works within a wider tradition of Carolingian reform texts providing moral instruction for particular social groups.67 The concept of the lay mirrors was not entirely new; alongside letters by Augustine, Jerome and others to Roman lay aristocrats, there are also some longer late antique texts that can be regarded as ‘conduct manuals’ for the laity. However, there is no evidence for these works having a direct inluence on Carolingian authors.68 62

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See Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, pp. 17–24; Alain Dubreucq, ‘La Littérature des specula: Délimitation du genre, contenu, destinataires et réception’, in Lauwers, Guerriers et moines, pp. 17–39, at pp. 21–3; Dubreucq, ‘Autour’, p. 272 n. 19. On Paulinus and LE see Yves-Marie Duval, ‘Paulin d’Aquilée et le duc Eric: Des clercs et moines aux laïcs et des laïcs aux clercs et moines’, Aquileia e le Venezie nell’Alto Medioevo, Antichità altoadriatiche 32 (Udine, 1988), pp. 115–47; Giuseppe Fornasir (ed.), Atti del convegno internazionale di studio su Paolino d’Aquileia nel xII centenario dell’episcopato (Udine, 1988); Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, pp. 25–116. On DIL see Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, pp. 191–372; Savigni, ‘Les Laïcs’, pp. 71–80; Michel Sot,‘Concordances et discordances entre culture des élites laïques et culture des élites cléricales à l’époque carolingienne: Jonas d’Orléans et Dhuoda’, in Bougard, Le Jan and McKitterick, Culture, pp. 341–61. On LM see Pierre Riché, ‘Introduction’, in Pierre Riché (ed.), Dhuoda: Manuel pour mon ils, Sources chrétiennes 225 (Paris, 1975) pp. 11–59; Dronke, ‘Dhuoda’; Steven A. Stoferahn, ‘The many faces in Dhuoda’s mirror:The Liber manualis and a century of scholarship’, Magistra 4 (1998), 89–134; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Dhuoda’, in Wormald and Nelson, Lay Intellectuals, pp. 106–20. Hincmar of Rheims, De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, ed. Doris Nachtmann, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 16 (Munich, 1998). On this text see Nachtmann’s introduction and Jean Devisse, Hincmar, Archévêque de Reims 845–882, 3 vols., Travaux d’histoire éthicopolitique 29 (Geneva, 1975–6),Vol ii, pp. 680–7. Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, pp. 237–40. On these texts and their manuscript traditions, see Kate Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 93–142.

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Lay mirrors Scholarly interest in the Carolingian lay mirrors is a relatively recent phenomenon;69 some historians have dismissed these texts as banal or useless.70 Their form is often a lorilegium, bringing together biblical and patristic extracts in a more or less developed authorial framework. Although they are often therefore seen as derivative, Pierre Toubert points out that there was no typical structure for a lay mirror and the contents were often subtly adapted for their recipient; he stresses ‘leur force et leur originalité’.71 Looking at the relationship between their authors, texts and recipients is therefore an important irst step in exploring the transmission of moral norms. Eric and Paulinus Eric, dux of Friuli, was probably born at Strasburg; nothing certain is known about his family, although a tombstone inscription may be that of his young son.72 Eric irst appears in the sources in the campaigns of 795–6, when his men decisively defeated the Avars and despoiled the Avar ‘ring’ (stronghold) of substantial treasures.73 Eric’s precise role in this campaign is unclear, as is his earlier career, but his importance to contemporaries is certain.74 He was killed in an ambush by the townspeople of Rijeka in Istria in 799 and a number of annals, histories and letters recount or lament his death.75 The most signiicant response was a planctus (funeral lament) composed by Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia. In fourteen verses it celebrates Eric as a hero, stresses the sadness his death caused, 69

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Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, pp. 26, 117–18, 197–9, 374–6, 453–4: there was only one edition of a complete lay mirror between 1777 and 1975: Edouard Bondurand’s edition of Dhuoda in 1887. See for example Janet L. Nelson, ‘On the limits of the Carolingian renaissance’, in Derek Baker (ed.), Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History: Papers Read at the Fifteenth Summer Meeting and the Sixteenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 14 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 51–69, at p. 59: ‘It is hard to believe that such anxieties [of “conscientious laymen”] were dispelled by the often banal prescriptions of an Alcuin or a Jonas.’ Karl Brunner, Oppositionelle Gruppen im Karolingerreich, Veröfentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 25 (Vienna, 1979), p. 104: ‘Allen [the addressees of the mirrors of Alcuin, Paulinus and Jonas] wäre es schwer gefallen, aus den ihnen dargebrachten Specula irgendeinen Nutzen für das praktische Leben zu ziehen.’ Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, p. 244. The detailed study by Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, inds common characteristics of the lay mirrors only at the most general of levels (pp. 519–39). Duval, ‘Paulin’, pp. 119–20, 143–5. ARF 796; ARF Rev. 796, pp. 98–9. He may have led another successful campaign against the Avars in 797: see James Bruce Ross,‘Two neglected paladins of Charlemagne: Erich of Friuli and Gerold of Bavaria’, Speculum 20 (1945), pp. 212–35, at pp. 224–5. See ibid., pp. 215–19; Duval, ‘Paulin’, pp. 120–1. ARF 799; ARF Rev. 799, pp. 108–9; VK 13, p. 16; Alcuin, Epistolae 185, 198, pp. 310, 327–8.

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Moral texts and lay audiences encourages this mourning, and ends with a prayer for Eric’s soul.76 Two manuscripts from the late ninth or early tenth century include copies of this poem with musical notation, suggesting that it was intended to be sung.77 Paulinus was not only a poet, but an important teacher, theologian and pastor.78 He presided over the Council of Cividale in 796/7, which Wilfried Hartmann sees as the irst example of how centrally made decisions could be implemented at the provincial level by men close to the ruler.79 This council was the irst to introduce important new regulations on marriage.80 Paulinus’ ruling on the penance to be done by a certain Aistulf, who had killed his wife, was similarly inluential.81 At least thirty manuscripts of Paulinus’ Liber exhortationis survive, dating from the ninth to the ifteenth century; the text was also available in tenth-century England, since it was used by the Vercelli Homilist.82 Only one of the surviving manuscripts attributes the text to Paulinus: in the others the work is either anonymous or attributed to Augustine of Hippo.83 The manuscript that does give Paulinus’ name (Paris BnF, ms lat. 2996, from the mid ninth century) says only that is it sent to a friend of his ‘soldiering [militans] in the world’. Although Eric’s name never appears in any manuscript of the text, he is the most likely recipient. Paulinus’ close personal friendship with Eric is clear from the planctus, which also shares common themes with Liber exhortationis.84 A letter from Alcuin is also illuminating. Addressed to Eric, it thanks him for a visit, probably in 796, and adds that since Paulinus was acting as Eric’s spiritual adviser, he did not need to write more to him about Christian observance.85 The implication is that Paulinus’ instruction of Eric was written as well as oral. Matfrid and Jonas For more than a decade, Matfrid, count of Orléans, was one of the most inluential men at Louis the Pious’ court. Although he held no oicial 76

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Paulinus of Aquileia, Carmen 2, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i, (Berlin, 1881) pp. 131–3; Duval, ‘Paulin’, pp. 116–19 provides a discussion and partial (French) translation. Sam Barrett, ‘The rhythmical songs of Paulinus of Aquileia’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 40 (2005), 53–73; Sam Barrett, ‘The rhythmical songs of Paulinus of Aquileia: Musical examples’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 41 (2006), 23–31, at p. 27. Fornasir, Paolino d’Aquileia. Wilfried Hartmann, Die Synoden der Karolingerzeit im Frankenreich und in Italien (Paderborn, 1989), pp. 117–19. See Chapter 8, p. 271. 81 See Chapter 6, p. 203. Clare A. Lees, ‘The dissemination of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis liber in Old English: A preliminary survey,’ Leeds Studies in English, n.s.16 (1985), 174–89, at p. 176. Duval, ‘Paulin’, p. 122. 84 Ibid., pp. 123–5. 85 Alcuin, Epistola 98, p. 142.

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Lay mirrors title there, his activities show his high status: encouraging Louis to grant charters, examining cases brought before Louis, and escorting the Danish prince Herold, as well as acting as a count and military leader.86 His son (Matfrid) was probably close to Lothar I, while one daughter (Ingiltrude) married an Italian count; Matfrid’s descendants remained inluential for generations.87 Matfrid was a controversial igure. Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, writing to Matfrid, probably in 826 × 828, latters him for his prominence at court, but also accuses him of protecting criminals from Louis’ justice.88 Matfrid may have engineered the downfall of Theodulf of Orléans, who was deposed in 818, allegedly for participation in Bernard of Italy’s revolt against Louis.89 Matfrid himself sufered dismissal and disgrace in 828, after failing to quash a revolt in the Spanish march, led by a rebel called Aizo.90 Matfrid was condemned to death and, although pardoned, lost both honores and also lands he had acquired. Allegations of corruption against him were investigated in 829, although the outcome is unknown.91 Scholars disagree about whether Matfrid’s downfall was due to military incompetence or political rivalry. Bernard of Septimania (Dhuoda’s husband) was already ighting Aizo when the army under Matfrid and Hugh, count of Tours, was sent as reinforcements. Bernard was one of the main gainers from their disgrace, becoming the most important man at Louis the Pious’ court after their fall. Roger Collins argues that Matfrid and Hugh’s dismissal was engineered by Bernard with the support of a faction at court;92 the criticism of Matfrid in Agobard’s letter may indicate that he was already becoming vulnerable.93 Philippe Depreux points out that Adrevald of Fleury also says Matfrid’s dismissal was because of ‘inertia’, but this proves only that the oicial explanation had become current in the Orléans region ifty years after the family’s power base 86

87

88

89

90 91 92

93

Philippe Depreux,‘Le Comte Matfrid d’Orléans (av. 815–836)’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des chartes 152 (1994), 331–74. On Matfrid’s family see ibid., pp. 341–2, 360–2; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 444; Rachel Stone, ‘“Bound from either side”: The limits of power in Carolingian marriage disputes, 840–870’, Gender and History 19 (2007), 467–82, at p. 469. De iniusticiis, ed. L. Van Acker, in Agobard Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 225–7. On the letter and its dating see Depreux, ‘Le Comte Matfrid’, pp. 331–4; de Jong, Penitential State, p. 144. Peter Godman, ‘Louis “the Pious” and his poets’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 19 (1985), 239–89, at pp. 243–53. ARF 827, 828, pp. 173–4; Astronomer 41, 42, pp. 440–4. Capitulare missorum 829, MGH Cap. ii:188, p. 10, c. 3. Roger Collins, ‘Pippin I and the kingdom of Aquitaine’, in Peter Godman and Roger Collins (eds.), Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840) (Oxford, 1990), pp. 363–89, at pp. 378–81. De Jong, Penitential State, p. 144.

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Moral texts and lay audiences there had been lost.94 Yet since there is no deinite evidence of hostilities between factions at Louis the Pious’ court before 828, it remains possible that Matfrid’s downfall was simply the result of a panicky search for scapegoats amid the fears of 827–8.95 Matfrid’s attempts to regain his position included a prominent involvement in three revolts by Louis’ sons between 830 and 833. Despite some temporary successes his career ended in exile with Lothar I, in Italy, where he died in an epidemic in 836.96 Jonas of Orléans, the successor to Theodulf as bishop, was also an inluential igure at Louis the Pious’ court, playing a key role in several synods and assemblies, as well as writing hagiographical and theological works.97 Nine manuscripts of his lay mirror, De institituione laicali, survive, in short (α) and long (β) versions.98 The shorter version is probably the earlier: one ninth-century manuscript of this includes a dedication to Matfrid, subsequently scratched out.99 This suggests that Jonas wrote the irst version for Matfrid between 818 and 828, and reworked it shortly after Matfrid’s downfall. Jonas reused the material in De institituione laicali several times. Extracts appear in the acts of the Paris synod of 829, the Relatio episcoporum produced in Worms in August 829 and the Council of Aachen in 836. Jonas also reused several chapters in his mirror for princes, De institutione regia, written for Pippin of Aquitaine about 831.100 William and Dhuoda The last recipient of a Carolingian lay mirror was William, the 16-yearold son of Matfrid’s rival, Bernard of Septimania. He received the text in 843, when he was at the court of Charles the Bald. William had commended himself to Charles in 841, after the Battle of Fontenoy; his father, Bernard, had conspicuously failed to come to the aid of Charles before his victory and was anxious to recoup his position. William became one of the young noblemen undergoing training at court; he was also potentially a hostage.101 Neither Bernard nor William remained committed to 94 96 97 98

99 100 101

Depreux, ‘Le comte Matfrid’, p. 357. 95 De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 148–52. Depreux, ‘Le comte Matfrid’, pp. 362–8. See Alain Dubreucq, ‘Introduction’, Dir, pp. 9–34. Isolde Schröder, ‘Zur Überlieferung von De institutione laicali des Jonas von Orléans’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 44 (1988), 83–97 gives details of the manuscripts, dating from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. Ibid., pp. 88–91: the manuscript is Cologne Dombibliothek, ms 184. Dubreucq, ‘Introduction’, pp. 35–49 discusses the relationship between these texts. On William and his family see Joachim Wollasch, ‘Eine adlige Familie des frühen Mittelalters: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihre Wirklichkeit’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 39 (1957), 150–88.

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Lay mirrors Charles for long. Bernard was executed for treason in 844; in the same year,William allied himself with Pippin of Aquitaine, and inlicted a devastating defeat on Charles.102 William’s warfare against Charles continued and he was inally captured and killed at Barcelona in 850.103 William’s younger brother, Bernard ‘Hairypaws’, in contrast, despite rebelling against Charles in 864, was later reconciled with him. His inluence continued into Louis the Stammerer’s reign, when he became guardian of Louis’ elder son, Louis III.The younger Bernard’s son,William the Pious, was the founder of Cluny.104 The careers of William and his male relatives are visible in numerous sources; we know about Dhuoda, in contrast, only from her own text. She was of noble birth, but her family background is unknown.105 We know nothing of her before 824, when she married Bernard, and after 843, although she implies that she had spent time at Louis the Pious’ court before her marriage.106 She wrote her manual between November 841 and February 843; three manuscripts of it survive.107 Dhuoda’s work clearly shows the education possible for a lay person by the mid ninth century. She cites a wide range of patristic works and also shows some knowledge of classical texts.108 Her Latin style, in contrast, is complex and unconventional; the poems in her handbook, for example, mix Latin and German rhythms.109 Dhuoda’s expectations of William similarly include him reading and learning from books as well as by example. She imagines her libellus (booklet) as one among a growing number of books William may have, and urges him to read the Fathers on the Trinity.110 It is noticeable that Dhuoda does not imply that she is unusual in providing moral advice to William; only in the fact that she must give it in writing, since he is absent from her. Her manual work shows that at least some of the Carolingian nobility had internalised the moral instruction they had received suiciently to transmit and adapt it. Dhuoda’s intended audience was probably not simply William and his brother. Janet Nelson and Régine Le Jan have both argued that she aimed at a wider role 102 104

105 107 108 109 110

AB 844, pp. 30–1; AX 844, p. 13. 103 AB 850, p. 38. Ibid. 864, 869, 879, pp. 72–3, 108, 147–8; Constance Brittain Bouchard, ‘Family structure and family consciousness among the aristocracy in the ninth to eleventh centuries’, Francia 14 (1986), 639–58, at pp. 651–8. Riché, ‘Introduction’, pp. 21–3. 106 Nelson, ‘Dhuoda’, pp. 119–20. Riché, ‘Introduction’, pp. 17–21, 45–50. Ibid., pp. 33–7; Dronke, ‘Dhuoda’, pp. 45–6. Dronke, ‘Dhuoda’ is a sensitive attempt to explore Dhuoda’s distinctive style and its purposes. LM prologue, 2:1, pp. 48, 72.

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Moral texts and lay audiences in instructing the court, including William’s companions, and possibly even the king.111 Moral advice f or rule r s Eberhard’s ownership of Smaragdus’ Via regia conirms that the boundaries between mirrors for princes and lay mirrors were not rigid. In keeping with my wish to separate lay noblemen from kings, I have not made systematic use of the mirrors for princes in this book.112 I have, however, drawn on them occasionally for speciic topics, and have also used other works admonishing rulers that say more on noble behaviour. There are four or ive substantial mirrors for princes extant from the Carolingian period. Although Hans Hubert Anton starts his investigation of mirrors for princes with late antique examples, the fully developed Carolingian genre actually appears later than lay mirrors: Smaragdus’ is the irst example, probably a decade or more after Paulinus’ Liber exhortationis.113 Jonas of Orléans’ De institutione regia from 831 partially reworks his earlier lay mirror De institutione laicali, with seven out of seventeen chapters reusing material.114 The last Carolingian lay mirror we have is Dhuoda’s manual from 841, but several important mirrors for princes were written later in the ninth century, showing a continued interest in kingship. Nicholas Staubach convincingly argues that Sedulius Scottus’ Liber de rectoribus christianis was written for Charles the Bald in 869 × 870.115 Hincmar of Rheims wrote De regis persona et regio ministerio for Charles the Bald in about 873,116 and also wrote another substantial text for this ruler (De cavendis) around the same time, which can be seen as either a lay mirror or a mirror for a prince.117 111

112 113 114

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116 117

Janet L. Nelson, ‘Gendering courts in the early medieval west’, in Brubaker and Smith, Gender, pp. 185–97, at pp. 194–5; Régine Le Jan, ‘Dhuoda ou l’opportunité du discours féminin’, in Christina La Rocca (ed.), Agire da donna: Modelli e pratiche di rappresentazione (secoli VI –x ). Atti del convegno (Padova, 18–19 febbraio 2005), Collection haut moyen âge 3 (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 109–28. See Chapter 1, p. 25. Anton, Fürstenspiegel provides the most detailed discussion of these texts. See above, p. 29. Jonas of Orléans, De institutione regia, ed. and trans. Alain Dubreucq, Jonas d’Orléans, ‘Le métier de roi’, Sources chrétiennes 407 (Paris, 1995). Dubreucq’s introduction provides a detailed discussion of DIR and its sources, including its relation to DIL (p. 35). Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christianis, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, in Sedulius Scottus, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters, Band 1, Heft 1 (Munich, 1906), pp. 1–91; Nicholas Staubach, Rex Christianus, Hofkultur und Herrschaftspropaganda im Reich des Karls des Kahlen.Teil II: Die Grundlegung der “religion royale” (Cologne, 1993), pp. 105–97. De regis; Anton, Fürstenspiegel, pp. 286–7; Devisse, Hincmar,Vol. ii, pp. 710–17. See above, p. 36.

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Moral advice for rulers Anton’s study discusses not only these mirrors for princes, but also a number of shorter texts. Throughout the eighth and ninth centuries, Carolingian moralists sent numerous letters and other texts to rulers, containing what Mayke de Jong describes as admonitio: warnings about the need for morally correct ruling of the kingdom.118 These works often include not only details of current problems within the kingdom, but also advice on how to deal with them. As a result, these provide much information on how noble laymen at diferent social levels were behaving, and expected to behave. The relatively practical nature of these texts presumes a circulation beyond the ruler himself to the wider court, either orally or in written form. The work of two archbishops, Agobard of Lyons and Hincmar of Rheims, in this genre are of particular interest. As Mayke de Jong shows, Agobard tried to build a position at court via carefully calculated admonitio addressed directly or indirectly to Louis the Pious.119 His initial approach was via speeches and treatises on the themes of church property and criticism of Jews, including ‘On the baptism of Jewish mancipia’, addressed to Adalhard, Wala and Helisachar in 823.120 Agobard addressed several other anti-Jewish tracts to prominent courtiers and from 826 onwards to Louis himself. His admonitory letter to Count Matfrid on injustice, probably from 826 × 828, suggests that he was gaining favour with Louis and could now safely attack a prominent courtier.121 Agobard’s later career shows a continued, if sometimes unsuccessful, determination to gain favour via high-minded criticism. He became a prominent supporter of Louis the Pious’ rebellious sons and in 833 published two short pamphlets (Liber apologeticus i and ii) justifying the revolts and vilifying the Empress Judith.122 The irst may have been preached as a sermon before the confrontation of Louis and his sons at the ‘Field of Lies’ in June 833; the second was intended to justify Louis’ public penance in October 833. Both, therefore, were intended to encourage the prominent churchmen and laymen supporting Lothar.123 Not surprisingly, Agobard 118 119

120

121 122 123

On admonitio see de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 112–41. Ibid., pp. 142–6. On Agobard see also Egon Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard von Lyon: Leben und Werk, Köln historische Abhandlungen 17 (Cologne, 1969); L. Van Acker, ‘Introduction’, in Agobard, Agobard Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. v–lxv. Agobard, De baptismo manciporum Iudaeorum, ed. L. Van Acker, in Agobard, Opera omnia, pp. 115–17. See above, p. 39. Agobard, Liber apologeticus, ed. L.Van Acker, in Opera omnia, pp. 309–19. On these texts see Elizabeth Ward, ‘Agobard of Lyons and Paschasius Radbertus as critics of the Empress Judith’, in W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds.), Women in the Church: Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford, 1990), pp. 15–25; de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 195–6, 229–31.

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Moral texts and lay audiences was deposed from oice in the aftermath of Louis’ restoration, but he was restored in 839.124 Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims between 845 and 882, has already been noted as the author of several mirrors, and a correspondent of Eberhard.125 He played a prominent part in Carolingian politics throughout his career and many of his other works provide important insights into practical moral issues. One of his most signiicant political moments, for example, came in 858, when Louis the German invaded Charles the Bald’s kingdom in western Francia. Charles was forced to retreat, leaving Louis in control of the kingdom. He then summoned the bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen to a synod at Rheims; instead they met independently at Quierzy, and under Hincmar’s leadership composed the ‘Quierzy letter’, setting out their demands for Louis and their vision of good kingship.126 The text was intended as a generic piece of advice for rulers: Hincmar later told Charles the Bald that it was equally applicable to him.127 It was the irst of many expressions of Hincmar’s theories of kingship. Hincmar’s actions in 858 were also a vital part of his ascent to a key political role as an adviser of kings, both within western Francia and in the wider Frankish empire.128 Hincmar’s prestigious position is relected in several texts he produced in 860 on the law and theology of marriage, which had a long-term impact on ecclesiastical practice. Lothar II had begun the diicult process of divorcing his irst wife Theutberga a few years before, accusing her of incest with her brother Hubert. After his initial attempt failed, because Theutberga’s champion successfully passed an ordeal, Lothar then claimed that Theutberga had herself confessed to her ofences. At a synod in Aachen in 860 she was subjected to public penance. Lotharingian bishops who opposed Lothar’s moves contacted Hincmar, and he responded with the treatise De divortio Lotharii regis et Teutbergae reginae, which discussed a series of questions on marriage, divorce and legal procedure.129 Later in the same year, Hincmar also advised on the marriage dispute of Count Stephen of the Auvergne, which had been brought before the synod of Tusey. He also probably discussed yet another marital dispute

124 126 128 129

Boshof, Erzbischof Agobard, p. 305. 125 See above, p. 29. MGH Conc. 3:41, pp. 408–27. 127 Hincmar, Epistola 126, p. 64. Devisse, Hincmar,Vol. i, pp. 313–27. On the case see Stuart Airlie, ‘Private bodies and the body politic in the divorce case of Lothar II’, Past and Present 61 (1998), 3–38; on De divortio see Letha Böhringer’s introduction to her edition: Hincmar of Rheims, De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, ed. Letha Böhringer, MGH Conc. 4, Supplementum 1 (Hanover, 1992), pp. 1–98. I am currently preparing a translation of this text along with Charles West.

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Moral advice for rulers during this synod: the attempt of Matfrid’s daughter Ingiltrude to avoid returning to her husband, Count Boso of Italy.130 Hincmar’s concern about the correct form of marriage is also shown in a text probably written at the Synod of Ponthion in 876. The De coercendo et exstirpando raptu viduarum, puellarum ac sanctimonialium is ostensibly the work of the ‘bishops of Gaul and Germany’, but quotes directly from De divortio and expresses Hincmar’s hard-line opposition to marriages by abduction.131 Hincmar’s political inluence outlived Charles the Bald, and he remained an important adviser to Charles’ son Louis the Stammerer and Louis’ son Carloman. The remaining texts of Hincmar’s that I use come from this last period of his life. The irst is his letter of instruction to the new King Louis in 877.132 The Novi regis instructio supplies not only moral advice for Louis, but Hincmar’s potted history of how previous royal successions had been managed, giving a concise guide to the proper relations of king and magnates.133 His letter of 880 to Charles the Fat (Ad Carolum III) asking him to support his nephews Louis III and Carloman is another short mirror for a prince, but also includes useful evidence on Hincmar’s concepts of lordship.134 Hincmar’s last work, an admonition to the bishops at the Synod of Epernay in 882 (Ad episcopos) written only a few weeks before he died, yet again urges the social elite to correct behaviour and supplies his vision of the well-ordered society.135 The same emphasis on the correct moral behaviour of the ruler and both clerical and lay elites is seen in the most important of Hincmar’s late works: the De ordine palatii, written for Carloman in 882. Its particular importance for my project is in its probable incorporation and reworking of an older text on court administration by Adalhard of Corbie, possibly from around 781. Its reuse conirms the ‘timeless’ nature of much Carolingian moral thought, in which the ideals of older works were held to be eternally valid, even as particular details of texts, such as the title of the head of the palace chapel, might be altered.136 One notable form of ninth-century admonitory literature is dream texts. These accounts of supposed visions and dreams, recorded by their 130 131

132 133 134 135 136

On the cases of Stephen and Ingiltrude, see Stone, ‘Bound’. Hincmar of Rheims, De coercendo et exstirpando raptu viduarum, puellarum ac sanctimonialium, PL 125, cols. 1017–36. A new edition is currently under preparation by Sylvie Joye. Hincmar of Rheims, Novi regis instructio ad rectam regni administrationem, PL 125, cols. 983–90. On this letter, see Devisse, Hincmar,Vol ii, pp. 967–72. Ad Carolum III, cols. 989–94. See Devisse, Hincmar,Vol. ii, pp. 982–3. Ad episcopos, cols. 1007–18. See Devisse, Hincmar,Vol. ii, pp. 989–90. For the debate on Hincmar’s use of Adalhard’s work, see now Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne:The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 142–55 and the literature cited.

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Moral texts and lay audiences viewers or amanuenses, became a signiicant form of political writing. More than twenty of them survive, and are used by Paul Dutton to produce ‘a more intense, almost nightmarish, reading of ninth-century history’.137 Although no lay magnates are known to have patronised such texts, and they focus on kings and monks, some lay noblemen are depicted.138 The ‘textual communities’ of such works were often centred on particular monasteries and cathedrals, but may also have included the royal court.139 Walahfrid Strabo, for example, in around 826, sent his versiied version of the Visio Wettini to his former teacher Grimald, by then Louis the Pious’ chaplain; the poem may have circulated at court.140 Walahfrid’s work was based on an earlier prose version, written by Heito, a former abbot of Reichenau.141 This often circulated in manuscript with the Visio cuiusdam pauperculae mulieris, the purported dream of a poor woman of Laon, probably written down at Reichenau in the 820s at Heito’s command.142 The speciic audience for such dream texts is often unknown, but their frequent demands for prayers for the souls of the royal dead suggests that one purpose was to encourage court audiences into patronising the services of the monasteries.143 Two later dream texts may have had more directly political aims. The use of Old High German words in the Visio Caroli Magni, written in Mainz around 870, suggests a text designed speciically to appeal to and inluence Louis the German.144 Paul Dutton argues that the Visio Karoli, supposedly dreamt by Charles the Fat, was written in Rheims about 888 in order to support the claims of Louis of Provence to the imperial throne.145 Such aims presumably required the content of the dreams to circulate within the wider political class. Although Carolingian dream texts arose across a number of decades within varied contexts, there is considerable overlap in the parade of sinners and ofences shown. Again, this suggests the persistence of shared moral norms within the elite. 137 138 139 140

141 142

143 144

145

Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln, NE, 1994), p. 1. Ibid., pp. 254, 323. Ibid., pp. 74–5, 254. Visio Wettini, ed. and trans. David A. Traill, Walahfrid Strabo’s ‘Visio Wettini’: Text, Translation and Commentary, Lateinische Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters 2 (Bern, 1974); Dutton, Politics, pp. 65–78; de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 138–41. Heito, Heitonis visio Wettini, MGH Poet. ii, pp. 267–75. Visio cuiusdam pauperculae mulieris, ed. Hubert Houben, ‘Visio cuiusdam pauperculae mulieris: Überlieferung und Herkunft eines frühmittelalterlichen Visionstextes (mit Neuedition)’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 124, neue Folge 85 (1976), 31–42. The redating to the 830s by de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 202–3 does not strike me as plausible: the text’s focus on the killing of Bernard of Italy its better with a date in the aftermath of Louis’ penance in 822. De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 136–7. Visio Caroli Magni, ed. P. Jafé, Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, 6 vols. (Berlin, 1864–73), Vol. iv, pp. 701–4; Dutton, Politics, pp. 200–8. Visio Karoli, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS 10 (Hanover, 1852), p. 458; Dutton, Politics, pp. 233–51.

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History and biography History and b iog raphy The writing of history, and the creation and recording of shared memories this involved, played a signiicant role in constructing many groups within Carolingian society, as a number of recent studies have shown.146 Although there was a long Frankish tradition of history writing, Matthew Innes and Rosamond McKitterick speak of a ‘historical revolution in both the range and quantity of historical writing produced’ and also see ‘a qualitative change’ from memory to writing in recording the past.147 Such texts have much to ofer a study of the moral instruction of lay noblemen. Historical works had an important moral and educative function, a role they retained even when authors took creative liberties with historical fact.148 Discussions of recent history were often intended to justify the actions of a particular ruler or noble faction, and so were eager to demonstrate the group’s superior moral probity.149 The moral uplift and self-congratulation provided in these works were intended primarily for an elite audience; indeed they may have helped create and sustain such elites.150 Most of the important historical texts are connected in some way to royal courts: many relect the views of courtiers and excourtiers, and a number of manuscripts were read at court or disseminated from it.151 Laymen probably formed a substantial part of the audience for this history. The ‘textual communities’ created around the writing of annals, for example, were not purely clerical, but included laymen, possibly noble, from ecclesiastical entourages, such as at Fulda.152 Rosamond McKitterick has pointed out the key role of a series of eighth- and ninth-century historical texts in exalting not just the Carolingian dynasty, but also the Frankish lay and ecclesiastical elite.153 She has also explored the evidence 146

147

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149 150 152 153

See for example Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (eds.), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000); Rosamond McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2004); Rosamond McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2006). Matthew Innes and Rosamond McKitterick,‘The writing of history’, in McKitterick, Carolingian Culture, pp. 193–220, at p. 193. David Ganz, ‘Humour as history in Notker’s Gesta Karoli Magni’, in Edward B. King, Jacqueline T. Schaefer and William B. Wadley (eds.), Monks, Nuns, and Friars in Mediaeval Society, Sewanee Mediaeval Studies 4 (Sewanee, TN, 1989), pp. 171–83, at pp. 182–3; Innes and McKitterick, ‘Writing of history’, pp. 212–13. See for example Nelson, ‘Public Histories’, pp. 256–67 on Nithard’s Histories. McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 5–7. 151 Ibid., pp. 130, 206–10. Innes and McKitterick, ‘Writing of history’, pp. 201–2. Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Political ideology in Carolingian historiography’, in Hen and Innes (eds.), Uses, pp. 162–74.

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Moral texts and lay audiences for lay ownership of historical works, discussing several manuscripts possibly owned by lay people, as well as the history books recorded in the wills of Eberhard and Eccard of Mâcon.154 Two of the most signiicant ninth-century historical texts were actually written by laymen: Einhard’s Vita Karoli and Nithard’s Histories.155 The variety of Carolingian historical works is noteworthy: McKitterick lists among subtypes universal histories, gesta (deeds) of bishops and abbots, secular biography, epic poetry, political hagiography, personal political accounts, historical martyrologies, chronologically organised collections of church canons and charters, and annals.156 My focus here is on those that tell us most speciically about the Carolingian laity. One important new form in the period was the annal. Providing a year-by-year account of history, and sometimes centring on a repeated annual cycle of events, the annal linked Frankish history into the Christian past via dating by the Incarnation. The church’s attempt to control time and space here met a secular interest in political propaganda.157 Although historians have now rejected the concept of ‘oicial annals’, annal writers often had close ties to the court. The irst part of the annals of Xanten, for example, was probably written by Gerward, the former palace librarian of Louis the Pious.158 Royal courts may also have played a role in circulating the texts of blocks of annals, or individual entries.159 This work draws heavily on a number of annalistic sources with close connections to the Carolingian court. The Annales regni Francorum, irst developed around 788, and then extended into the ninth century, are the most inluential text discussing Charlemagne and his predecessors and play a crucial role in establishing a triumphal ideology connecting Carolingian rulers to the imagined community of the Frankish gens (people). They are particularly useful from 788 onwards, since there is an increased emphasis on the military and diplomatic roles of speciic magnates.160 A revised version of the annals, comprising a reworked version of the entries for 741–801, is more forthcoming on opposition to 154 155 156

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McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 238–40, 245–9; History and Memory, pp. 28–9. See below, pp. 50–1, 52–3. McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past, pp. 65–6. Several of these genres are discussed in detail by McKitterick, History and Memory. On historical poetry, see below, pp. 54–7. On annals see McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 97–132; Perceptions of the Past, pp. 65–89. Heinz Löwe, ‘Studien zu den Annales Xantenses’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 8 (1951), 59–99. McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 21–2; Perceptions of the Past, p. 77. On these annals see Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Constructing the past in the early middle ages:The case of the Royal Frankish Annals’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series 7 (1997), pp. 101–29; History and Memory, pp. 99–155; Charlemagne, pp. 31–56.

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History and biography Carolingian rule and on military disasters.161 The Annales mettenses priores, written in Chelles around 806 under the supervision of Charlemagne’s sister Gisela, focus on the rise and continuation of the Carolingian dynasty, and ofer vivid examples of justiications for the expansionary warfare of the eighth century.162 The Annales regni Francorum end in 829: the crisis in Louis the Pious’ kingdom apparently disrupted their production.163 The remainder of the ninth century is, however, exceptionally well covered by annals. The Annales Bertiniani give a continuation of the Annales regni Francorum from a west Frankish viewpoint until 882. Between the late 830s and 861 they are written by Prudentius of Troyes and subsequently by Hincmar of Rheims; both had close links to court, even as they maintained a certain intellectual distance from Charles the Bald.164 Janet Nelson argues that these annals were not simply ‘private’ works, but that copies circulated at Charles’ court.165 A diferent east Frankish perspective for 714 onwards is provided by the Annales Fuldenses.The authorship, dating and textual history of this work, which survives in three diferent groups of manuscripts with divergences for the period after 882, are still debated. I have followed the views of Timothy Reuter and Simon MacLean, who link the annals to the circle of the archbishops of Mainz from the 860s, if not earlier. For the period after 882, one continuation for 883–7 was made under the supervision of Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz, while another covers the period 883–901 from a Bavarian perspective. The composite text thus provides multiple views on Frankish life, relecting both the political fortunes of Liutbert and the more provincial interests of the Bavarian continuator.166 161

162

163 164

165

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See Chapter 3, pp. 98, 102. On this version see Roger Collins, ‘The “Reviser” revisited: Another look at the alternative version of the Annales regni Francorum’, in Alexander Callander Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter Gofart (Toronto, 1998), pp. 191–213. McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 27–31; History and Memory, pp. 115–18. See Chapter 3, pp. 75–6. On the Annales mettenses priores see McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 125–6;Yitzhak Hen, ‘The Annals of Metz and the Merovingian past’, in Hen and Innes, Uses (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 175–90. De Jong, Penitential State, p. 65. On these annals see Janet L. Nelson, ‘The “Annals of St Bertin”’, in Margaret T. Gibson and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom (Aldershot, 1990), pp. 23–40. On Prudentius see Philippe Depreux, Prosopographie de l’entourage de Louis le Pieux (781–840), Instrumenta 1 (Sigmaringen, 1997), pp. 349–50; on Hincmar see above, pp. 44–5. Janet L. Nelson, ‘History-writing at the courts of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald’, in Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibelreiter (eds.), Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter,Veröfentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 32 (Vienna, 1994), pp. 435–42, at pp. 441–2. On the annals see Timothy Reuter, ‘Introduction’, in The Annals of Fulda (Manchester, 1992), pp. 1–14; Simon MacLean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series 57

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Moral texts and lay audiences In contrast to the east and west Frankish traditions, there is relatively little history that focuses on the Middle Kingdom (the future Lotharingia). I have made occasional references to the Annales Xantenses,167 and to the Annales Vedastini. The latter were written in the monastery of St Vaast at the end of the ninth century and relect the regional inluence of the counts of Flanders.168 By far the most signiicant text providing information on this region is Regino of Prüm’s Chronicon, written around 908 and intended for the court of Louis the Child. As Simon MacLean has recently demonstrated, Regino’s work is a hybrid in both form and content, combining aspects of both universal and Frankish history into the format of annals, and pivoting around the text of the Annales regni Francorum inserted at the start of the second book.169 Regino’s many oral sources of information probably included several families with connections to Prüm, which may explain the favourable descriptions of a number of lay noblemen. The retelling of stories about such igures may have formed a way of binding together the monastery with the local elite outside its walls.170 The Carolingian period also saw the reinvention of secular biography, with the key work being Einhard’s Vita Karoli. This biography of Charlemagne was probably written around 821 × 823, based on the parallels shown by Karl Krüger to texts of this period that stress Louis’ achievements as parallels to Charlemagne’s.171 Rosamond McKitterick’s dating before or around 817 is diicult to it with Einhard’s positive references to Bernard of Italy and Wala;172 I am not convinced by her argument that such a text might continue to circulate even after Bernard’s revolt. Instead, such appreciations of early opponents of Louis the Pious ind their most likely context in the political reconciliations of 821–2. In both its style and content the Vita Karoli was a reaction against the prevalent form of early medieval biography: the life of a saint, written in a ‘simple’ style and intended to encourage imitation. Einhard, in contrast, wrote of an almost inimitable secular ruler, and longed for

167 168

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170 171

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(Cambridge, 2003), pp. 24–47; Richard Corradini,‘Die Annales Fuldenses: Identitätskonstruktionen im ostfränkischen Raum am Ende der Karolingerzeit’, in Richard Corradini et al., Texts and Identities, pp. 121–36; McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past, pp. 79–80. See above, p. 48. Heinz Löwe, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter: Vorzeit und Karolinger. V. Heft: Die Karolinger vom Vertrag von Verdun bis zur Herrschaftsantritt der Herrscher aus dem sächsischen Hause. Das westfränkische Reich (Weimar, 1973), pp. 535–6. Simon MacLean, ‘Introduction’, in History and Politics in Late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe:The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg (Manchester, 2009), pp. 1–60, at pp. 6–7. Ibid., pp. 36–41. Karl Heinrich Krüger, ‘Neue Beobachtungen zur Datierung von Einhards Karlsvita’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 32 (1998), 124–45. See for example McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 11–20.

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History and biography the ‘Ciceronian eloquence’ to do this worthily. Following the model of Suetonius, he produced a thematic picture of Charlemagne, avoiding a straightforward narrative presentation.173 Einhard’s text circulated widely (there are over 100 extant manuscripts)174 and both inspired and challenged several later biographers. Yet although written by a layman, its tight focus on Charlemagne’s life and character means it has less to say about and to lay noblemen than some subsequent, less polished works. Walahfrid Strabo’s preface to the biography of Louis the Pious by Thegan, the chorbishop of Trier, compared it unfavourably to Einhard’s work in its tone and style.175 Thegan’s text, written in 836 × 837 in the aftermath of Louis the Pious’ deposition and reinstatement, has a more explicit political purpose than the Vita Karoli.176 Thegan’s polemics against Ebbo of Rheims, who had played a prominent part in Louis’ coerced public penance of 833, were intended to make Ebbo a scapegoat.177 This aspect is particular interesting for my work, showing how the shared ideals of an elite might be used to attack a political opponent of low birth. Ernst Tremp contrasts the quantity of contemporary biographical information about Louis the Pious favourably with that about Charlemagne.178 A second biographer of Louis, the anonymous court cleric known as the ‘Astronomer’, probably inished his Vita Hludowici imperatoris in early 841.179 Like Thegan’s, his work provides important evidence for a court insider’s view of the rest of society. The Astronomer’s tone is far calmer than Thegan’s, but he too has little respect for his social inferiors.180 His text also gives glimpses into lay views on warfare: much of the irst section, dealing with Louis’ rule in Aquitaine in 781–814, is probably based 173

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177 178 179

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David Ganz, ‘Einhard’s Charlemagne: The characterisation of greatness’, in Joanna Story (ed.), Charlemagne: Empire and Society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 38–51. On the text, see also McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 7–20 and the literature cited there; on Einhard’s life and other works see Hermann Schefers (ed.), Einhard: Studien zu Leben und Werk. Dem Gedenken an Helmut Beumann gewidmet, Arbeiten der Hessischen Historischen Kommission, Neue Folge 12 (Darmstadt, 1997); Smith, ‘Einhard’; Paul Edward Dutton, ‘An introduction to Einhard’, in Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Peterborough, ON, 1998), pp. xi–xli. Mathias M.Tischler, Einharts Vita Karoli: Studien zur Entstehung, Überlieferung und Rezeption, MGH Schriften 48 (Hanover, 2001) has an exhaustive listing and discussion. Thegan, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, ed. and trans. Ernst Tremp, Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG 64 (Hanover, 1995), pp. 167–208, at p. 168. On Thegan, see Ernst Tremp, ‘Thegan und Astronomus, die beiden Geschichtsschreiber Ludwigs des Frommen’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 691–700. De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 72–9. Tremp, ‘Thegan und Astronomus’, p. 691. Astronomer, Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. and trans. Ernst Tremp, Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG 64 (Hanover, 1995). On the Astronomer, see de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 79–89; Tremp, ‘Thegan und Astronomus’. De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 81–5.

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Moral texts and lay audiences on an earlier account by Ademar, a count in Septimania or Aquitaine who later became a monk.181 The earliest group of manuscripts transmitting the text are associated with Charles the Bald’s court;182 here again, the work may have been important for securing an ‘agreed version’ of the recent past among a ruler’s supporters. The lexibility of the biographical form is shown by three unusual texts from the second half of the ninth century. Notker the Stammerer’s Gesta Karoli Magni was composed for Charles the Fat, probably between 885 and 887, and, like the Astronomer’s work, had as one of its sources the reminiscences of an old warrior (Adalbert, the father of one of Notker’s fellow monks).183 David Ganz argues that the work was a deliberate rewriting of Einhard’s Vita Karoli to provide a more ‘Christian’ view of Charlemagne, with a string of humorous anecdotes providing moral examples to spur on his successors.184 Simon MacLean notes parallels between characters in the anecdotes and contemporary courtiers, such as the Alemannian count Udalrich. This suggests an intended audience extending beyond the ruler to his close associates, even if the text never inally reached this audience.185 Biography of a very diferent kind was the chosen political weapon of Paschasius Radbertus. His Vita Adalhardi and Epitaphium Arsenii combine hagiography of Charlemagne’s cousins Adalhard and Wala with severe criticism of the court of Louis the Pious. Mayke de Jong argues for the inluence of these texts beyond the monastic community of Corbie, seeing the second book of the Epitaphium, in particular, as justiication of Wala’s conduct to a court audience who, like him, had been involved in the crises of 830–4.186 A inal work with particularly signiicance for this book is Nithard’s Histories. Nithard, lay abbot of St Riquier and a grandson of Charlemagne, wrote the work in 841–3 at the request of Charles the Bald for an audience of that ruler’s supporters.187 Janet Nelson was the irst to call attention to Nithard’s increasingly critical attitude towards Charles the Bald as his work progressed. She has subsequently argued, however, that the work as completed may still have been intended for Charles and a 181 183 184 186

187

Astronomer, pp. 69–75. 182 De Jong, Penitential state, p. 81. Notker 2, Preface, p. 48. On the date, see MacLean, Kingship, pp. 203–4, 229. Ganz, ‘Humour’. 185 MacLean, Kingship, pp. 204–29. De Jong, Penitential State, p. 105. She is currently preparing a new translation of these texts. See also Brigitte Kasten, Adalhard von Corbie: Die Biographie eines karolingischen Politikers und Klostervorstehers, Studia humaniora 3 (Düsseldorf, 1986), pp. 10–12; David Ganz, ‘The Epitaphium Arsenii and opposition to Louis the Pious’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 537–50. Nithard, Historiarum libri IIII, ed. Ernst Müller, MGH SRG 44 (Hanover, 1907); Nelson, ‘Public Histories’, pp. 256–60.

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Poetry wider court audience.188 Nithard’s importance for studying lay noble attitudes has often been recognised, and my analysis relies heavily on earlier studies.189 Poet ry The reign of Charlemagne witnessed a revival of Latin poetry, which continued into the late ninth century and beyond.190 A wide variety of genres were used, including verse epistles, eclogue, lyric and narrative verse, and while most of the poetry was religious, secular epic re-emerged.191 Carolingian poetry has been relatively little studied, but provides particularly useful evidence for the study of warfare, since more Latin poetry on the subject survives than in Old English or early German dialects.192 Two Carolingian lay people are known to have written poetry: Dhuoda and Angelbert, whose view from the front line of the battle at Fontenoy makes his lay status likely.193 A few poems are addressed to particular lay noblemen: besides Sedulius’ poems to Eberhard, an unknown monk called Gosbert sent an acrostic poem to Count William of Blois (d. 834).194 A number of other poems probably included lay nobles in their audience, judging from their content and language.195 188 189

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191 192

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Nelson, ‘History-writing’, pp. 440–1. Nelson’s work is fundamental, but see also Hans Patze, ‘Iustitia bei Nithard’, Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag am 19. September 1971, 3 vols., Veröfentlichungen des Max-PlanckInstituts für Geschichte 36 (Göttingen, 1972), Vol. iii, pp. 147–65; Philippe Depreux, ‘Nithard et la res publica: Un regard critique sur le règne de Louis le Pieux’, Médiévales 22–3 (1992), 149–61; Stuart Airlie, ‘The world, the text and the Carolingian: Royal, aristocratic and masculine identities in Nithard’s Histories’, in Wormald and Nelson, Lay Intellectuals, pp. 51–76. See Peter Godman, ‘Introduction’, in PCR, pp. 1–80. Mary Garrison, ‘The emergence of Carolingian Latin literature and the court of Charlemagne (780–814)’, in McKitterick, Carolingian Culture, pp. 111–40. Ibid., p. 114. The surviving corpus of Old English poetry on warfare consists of Beowulf (c. 3,200 lines), The Battle of Maldon (c. 350 lines) and a few short pieces such as Widsmith, Waldere and The Fight at Finnsburg.We have only a few brief German poems on such themes (the Hildebrandslied, Ludwigslied and Georgslied). In contrast, Carolingian poetry on warfare includes the irst two books of Abbo’s Bella Parisiacae urbis (c. 1,300 lines), Books i and iii of Ermoldus Nigellus’ In honorem Hludovicii Pii (c. 1,300 lines) and Waltharius (c. 1,500 lines), as well as a number of shorter poems. Angelbert, Versus de bella quae fuit acta Fontaneto, in PCR, pp. 262–5. On Dhuoda, see above, p. 41; on Angelbert’s poem and its manuscripts see Claudiane Fabre, ‘Deux Planctus rythmiques en latin vulgaire du ixe siècle: i. Sur la Bataille de Fontenoy (841), ii. Sur le meurtre du sénéchal Alard (878)’, in La Chanson de Geste et le mythe carolingien: Mélanges Réne Louis publiés par ses collègues, ses amis et ses élèves à l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire, 2 vols. (Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay, 1982),Vol. i, pp. 177–252. Gosbert, Gosberti carmen acrostichum, MGH Poet 1 (Berlin, 1881, pp. 620–2). On Sedulius’ poems, see above, p. 29. McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 227–32 is fundamental on lay audiences for Latin poetry.

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Moral texts and lay audiences We possess several epitaphs of lay noblemen;196 a lay audience for these is plausible, especially given the musicial settings surviving for Paulinus’ planctus on Eric.197 Other secular ‘occasional’ poems look intended for court recitations: these include the ‘circulation poems’ associated with Aachen after 790 and several poems celebrating Charlemagne’s military victories.198 Other longer poems also presume an audience including noble laymen. Mayke de Jong argues that the ‘name-dropping’ of magnates in Ermoldus Nigellus’ poem on Louis the Pious might have been intended to win support from them for his return to court.199 Abbo of St Germaindes-Prés dedicated Bella Parisiacae urbis to Bishop Gozlin of Paris, but also aimed to leave an example to future defenders of cities.200 Much of the eighth-century poetry I use consists of relatively short pieces centred on the celebration of royal activities. Alongside the works of Paulinus and Alcuin,201 these include the De conversione Saxonum carmen, probably written by Lull of Mainz,202 an anonymous rhythmus (poem written in rhythmical verse) on Pippin’s victory over the Avars and a poem on Charlemagne’s defeat of Tassilo by ‘Hibernicus Exul’.203 The ‘Paderborn Epic’ (otherwise known as Karolus Magnus et Leo papa) is a far more substantial work; even in its current fragmentary form, it is over 500 lines long. The poem was written, most probably by Moduin, to celebrate the meeting of Charlemagne and Leo III at Paderborn in 196

197 199 200 201

202

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The following are the epitaphs contained in the four Carolingian volumes of the MGH poetry series: MGH Poet. i, pp. 109–10 (Eggihard), 114 (Gerald), 131–3 (Eric); Poet. ii, pp. 237–8 (Einhard, Guntham and Ottruda); Poet. iii, pp. 310–11 (Nithard); Poet. iv, pp. 137 (Henry), 1029–30 (Theoderic and Eccard). See above, pp. 37–8. 198 Garrison, ‘Emergence’, pp. 123–36. De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 90–1. On Ermoldus see below, pp. 55–6. Abbo, Dedicatory letter, in Bella Parisiacae urbis, cc. 2, 3. On Abbo see below, pp. 56–7. On Paulinus’ poems see Dag Norberg (ed.), L’Oeuvre poétique de Paulin d’Aquilée: Edition critique avec introduction et commentaire, Kungl.Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademiens Handlingar, Filologisk-ilosoiska serien 18 (Stockholm, 1979). On Alcuin’s poetry see Peter Godman, Poets and Emperors: Frankish Politics and Carolingian Poetry (Oxford, 1987), pp. 39–78; Mary Garrison, ‘Alcuin’s world through his letters and verse’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge (1995); Marie-Hélène Jullien and Françoise Perelman (eds.), Auctores Galliae, 735–987. Tom. 2, Alcuinus, Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi 2 (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 25–106. De conversione Saxonum carmen, ed. and trans. Susan A. Rabe, Faith, Art, and Politics at Saint-Riquier: The Symbolic Vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 62–6. Rabe’s argument (pp. 54–9) for Angilbert’s authorship is unconvincing, as Janet L. Nelson,‘Review of Rabe, Faith, Art, and Politics at St-Riquier’, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998), 252–4 points out. I prefer the attribution to Lull in Karl Hauck, Karolingische Taufpfalzen im Spiegel hofnaher Dichtung: Überlegungen zur Ausmalung von Pfalzkirchen, Pfalzen und Reichsklöstern, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. i: Philologisch-historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1985 1 (Göttingen, 1985), pp. 56–73. De Pippini regis victoria avarica, in PCR, pp. 186–91; Hibernicus Exul, Hos Karoli regi versus Hibernicus Exul, in PCR, pp. 174–9. On these poems see Alfred Ebenbauer, Carmen historicum: Untersuchungen zur historischen Dichtung im Karolingischen Europa, 2 vols., Philologica germanica 4 (Vienna, 1978), Vol. i, pp. 7–33; Garrison, ‘Emergence’, pp. 131–6.

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Poetry 799.204 It shares the same interest as the shorter poems already mentioned in portraying court hierarchy and triumphant royal action, and its very limited manuscript tradition (only one witness survives) suggests it shared in the ephemerality of these poems.205 The most substantial eighth-century poem to ind a lay audience is probably Theodulf of Orléans’ Paraenesis (otherwise known as Contra iudices). The historical event of Theodulf being sent as a missus to southern France in 798 provides the occasion for a scathing attack on the weaknesses of Carolingian justice and an insistent demand on the moral duties of judges, in a text full of satire and classical allusions.206 Lawrence Nees has discussed the multiple levels of meanings in the poem, which probably circulated at court. Its combination of timeless Christian themes of justice with speciic reactions to the political and moral concerns of the period around 800 makes it likely that lay magnates as well as court clerics were among its intended audience.207 While some later Carolingian authors followed Theodulf in his use of parody,208 none of them was so ambitious in the literary scope of their moralising. Instead, as before, the corpus of ninth-century secular poems mainly comprises epic, panegyric and blends of these forms. The poems of Ermoldus Nigellus and Walahfrid Strabo are especially signiicant for their depictions of the courts of Louis the Pious and Pippin I of Aquitaine. In the period around 824–8, Ermoldus wrote two short verse epistles to Pippin and a long panegyric, In honorem Hludovicii Pii, addressed to Louis the Pious.209 The works were intended to win his return from exile 204

205 206

207 208

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Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 366–79. On the author, see Francesco Stella, ‘Autore e attribuzioni del “Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa”’, in Peter Godman, Jörg Jarnut, and Peter Johanek (eds.), Am Vorabend der Kaiser Krönung: Das Epos “Karolus Magnus et Leo papa” und der Papstbesuch in Paderborn 799 (Berlin, 2001), pp. 19–33. Garrison, ‘Emergence’, p. 136. Theodulf, Carmen 28, in Carmina, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 445– 581, at pp. 493–517. On Theodulf and his poetry see Nikolai A. Alexandrenko, ‘The poetry of Theodulf of Orleans: A translation and critical study’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis,Tulane University (1970); Godman, Poets and Emperors, pp. 68–106. On the Paraenensis see Fuhrmann, ‘Philologische Bemerkungen’; Lawrence Nees, A Tainted Mantle: Hercules and the Classical Tradition at the Carolingian Court (Philadelphia, 1991), pp. 21–143. Ibid., pp. 123–30. Dennis M. Kratz, ‘Aeneas or Christ? An epic parody by Sedulius Scottus’, Classical World 69 (1975/6), 319–23. Ermoldus Nigellus, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932). On Ermoldus’ works see Ebenbauer, Carmen historicum,Vol. i, pp. 101–49; Godman, Poets and Emperors, pp. 106–29; Philippe Depreux, ‘La pietas comme principe de gouvernement d’après le Poème sur Louis le Pieux d’Ermold le Noir’, in Joyce Hill and Mary Swan (eds.), The Community, the Family and the Saint: Patterns of Power in Early Medieval Europe, International Medieval Research 4 (Turnhout, 1998), pp. 201–24.

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Moral texts and lay audiences back into court circles, via a traditionally minded celebration of the glories of the rulers addressed. Ermoldus’ descriptions of the achievements of Louis and the Franks in war and peace provide vivid images of the positive and negative behaviour of both courtiers and rulers. Ermoldus’ attempts to celebrate Louis’ military success in Spain may have seemed tactless by the late 820s, when the Spanish March was increasingly threatened by Saracen attacks.210 Walahfrid Strabo was far more successful in using poetry as a career move. Soon after sending his poem Visio Wettini to Louis the Pious’ chaplain Grimald, he achieved a position at court, and he continued to adapt his views successfully to suit changed circumstances.211 Several subsequent poems, such as De imagine Tetrici and a poem on Ruadburn, portrayed particular lay courtiers l atteringly, alongside those members of the royal family whose favours Walahfrid currently sought.212 Again, the implication is that such noblemen would hear or read his tributes and be appreciative. Another poem from Louis’ reign also combines praise for a ruler and his lay appointees. The Carmen de Timone comite, produced in Freising around 834, acclaims Louis the German and, in more ambiguous fashion, one of his representatives, the Bavarian count Timo.213 The text survives only in one eleventh-century Freising manuscript, but one of its key moral messages, the dangers inherent in laymen trespassing on holy matters, presupposes a wider audience. For the period after 840, the poems of Sedulius Scottus are particularly signiicant. His panegyrics for both Carolingian rulers and Eberhard of Friuli allow comparisons of their portrayals. Sedulius’ poems, including those that form an integral part of his mirror for princes, Liber de rectoribus christianis, are also crucial to arguments about ninth-century attitudes to warfare.214 The tradition of Carolingian political poetry continued throughout the ninth century. I have made considerable use of the poem on the siege of Paris written by Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés in 888 × 897. The detailed descriptions of battles against Vikings in its irst two books are important not only for military historians, but also for studying the ethos of Frankish warriors. Only only one known manuscript of this section of

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Godman, Poets and Emperors, p. 118. 211 See above, p. 46. On these poems see Godman, Poets and Emperors, pp. 133–47; PCR, p. 37; de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 94–5. Carmen de Timone comite, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. ii (Berlin, 1884), pp. 120–4. On the text, see Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 1–5. Sedulius Scottus, Carmina, MGH Poet. iii (Berlin, 1896), pp. 154–237. On his poems see Reinhard Düchting, Sedulius Scottus: Seine Dichtungen (Munich, 1968). On LRC see above, p. 42.

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Poetry the poem survives, but its circulation is suggested by Radbod of Utrecht’s use of it.215 Another key poem for discussions of Carolingian warfare is Waltharius, whose dating is still controversial. Its traditional attribution to Ekkehard I of St Gall in around 930 has now been seriously undermined.216 The prologue, in which an unknown Gerald addresses bishop Erkanbald, is also probably a later addition.217 External evidence for Waltharius, such as palaeography, places its composition between 780 and the third quarter of the tenth century.218 Repeated attempts by literary scholars to date it more closely on stylistic grounds have proved inconclusive, as has Jan Ziolkowski’s examination of the poem’s material descriptions of weapons and armour.219 Other approaches, however, have suggested a ninth-century date. Edward Schröder, for example, argued that the name forms are ninthcentury or earlier, while several scholars have pointed out that the poem’s generally positive view of the Huns its better with the ninth century than the 920s.220 There is also disagreement about the audience for the poem. Most scholars still see the poem as written for a monastic audience, but one of the key pieces of evidence, the fact that the poet addresses his audience as ‘brothers’ (fratres), is less conclusive than often realised.221 Ermoldus Nigellus’ works, for example, several times show fratres being used for companions or equals in a non-monastic setting. The Moorish leader 215

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Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés, Bella Parisiacae urbis, ed. and trans. Henri Waquet, Abbon: Le Siège de Paris par les Normands, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 20 (Paris, 1942). On this poem, see also MacLean, Kingship, pp. 55–62. See Peter Dronke, ‘“Waltharius” and the “Vita Waltharii”’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 106 (1984), pp. 390–402 for a summary of the older arguments. Walter Berschin, ‘Erkanbald von Straßburg (965–991)’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 134 (1986), 1–20. Paul Klopsch, ‘Waltharius’, in Burghart Wachinger (ed.), Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 14 vols. (Berlin, 1977–2008),Vol. x, Lieferung 2, cols. 627–38, at col. 636. Ferrucio Bertini, ‘Problemi di attribuzione e di datazione del Waltharius’, Filologia mediolatina 6/7 (1999–2000), 63–77; Jan M. Ziolkowski, ‘Of arms and the (Ger)man: Literary and material culture in the Waltharius’, in Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (eds.), The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 193–208, at p. 207. Edward Schröder, ‘Die deutschen Personennamen in Ekkehards Waltharius’, in Emil Ernst Ploss (ed.), Waltharius und Walthersage: Eine Dokumentation der Forschung, Olms Studien 10 (Hildesheim, 1969), pp. 356–68;Wolfram von den Steinen, ‘Der Waltharius und sein Dichter’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 84 (1952/3), 1–47, at p. 40; Bernd Schütte, ‘Länder und Völker im “Waltharius”’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 21 (1986), 70–4. The very irst line of Waltharius is ‘Tertia pars orbis, fratres, Europa vocatur’ (‘A third part of the world is called Europe, brothers’): Waltharius, line 1, ed. and trans. Dennis M. Kratz, in Waltharius and Ruodlieb, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series a13 (New York, 1984), pp. 2–71, at pp. 4–5.

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Moral texts and lay audiences Zado addresses his troops in this way, and Ermoldus himself is called ‘brother’ by Pippin of Italy.222 In his irst letter-poem to Pippin I of Aquitaine, meanwhile, Ermoldus instructs his muse to greet those at court: ‘Say, “May the fathers, brothers and comrades [sodales] be well.”’223 Despite these parallels, I do not accept Karl-Ferdinand Werner’s argument that Ermoldus wrote Waltharius.224 This relies mainly on the dubious grounds that a poem celebrating an Aquitanian hero must have been written by an Aquitanian (which makes the Old English versions dificult to explain), and that Ermoldus was the only poet writing for the Aquitanian court, which his own poems disprove.225 Werner’s suggestion of the poem as intended for a court, however, does seem plausible. Peter Dronke, Rosamond McKitterick and Janet Nelson have all suggested an early-ninth-century courtly audience, including laymen, for the poem.226 This would also it with Ziolkowski’s observation that the poet was ‘a cognoscente of arms and armour of his day’.227 Overall, I see this as the most plausible context for the poem. I also regard Waltharius as being intended seriously, although with some comic moments, rather than as a satirical attack on warrior mentalities, as Dennis Kratz has claimed.228 The morality of Waltharius, taken at face value, is irmly within the mainstream of Carolingian thought, and I have used it as such.229 R egulatory te xt s Eberhard’s possession of a collection of law codes reminds us of the importance given to written law in the period. Yet discussions of 222 223

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In honorem, 481, 2019. Ermoldus Nigellus, Ad Pippinum regem, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932), pp. 202–17, line 41. Karl Ferdinand Werner, ‘Hludovicus Augustus: Gouverner l’empire chrétien – idées et réalitiés’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir (Oxford, 1990), pp. 3–123, at pp. 101–23. Ermoldus Nigellus, Ad eundum Pippinum, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932), pp. 218–33, lines 7–8: ‘Nam tibi magna satis possent cum scribere magni, / Et facerent, nostrum saepe placebat opus.’ (‘For although great ones can write great things for you, and have done, my work often used to please.’) Peter Dronke, ‘Waltharius-Gaiferos’, Barbara et antiquissima carmina (Barcelona, 1977), pp. 27–79, at pp. 69–70; McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 228–9; Janet L. Nelson, ‘England and the Continent in the ninth century. iv: Bodies and minds’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series 15 (2005), pp. 1–27, at pp. 17–18. Ziolkowski, ‘Arms’, p. 207. Dennis M. Kratz, Mocking Epic: Waltharius, Alexandreis and the Problem of Christian Heroism (Madrid, 1980). I hope to discuss this issue in more detail in a further article.

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Regulatory texts Carolingian ‘legislation’ can easily import anachronistic concepts. Early medieval rulers who commanded laws to be written down were not simply concerned with their enforcement. Patrick Wormald has shown the important ideological component to such law-making; early medieval laws thus provide direct evidence for the image that kings wanted of themselves and their people.230 The dissemination of legal texts could also help to create a group identity among its elite recipients.231 Legal texts are thus important sources for early medieval social and moral norms. I have made some use of the Pactus legis Salicae and its later additions, but much less of other barbarian leges, since it is dangerous to generalise from texts from widely diferent eras and social and legal backgrounds.232 Even the Pactus is a problematic text for examining speciically Carolingian attitudes.233 Far more useful as a witness to speciically Carolingian concerns are the texts known as ‘capitularies’, deined broadly as the decrees and announcements of Frankish rulers, covering all areas of their rule and administration. The category of ‘capitularies’ is somewhat problematic, containing texts of varied status;234 attempts to develop a detailed typology have not been very successful.235 Scholarly debate is still intense on such topics as the capitularies’ legal status, efectiveness and distribution.236 Nevertheless, some general points can be made. The important ideological and moral component of many capitularies is clear. As Rosamond McKitterick puts it: ‘In the royal capitularies and ecclesiastical conciliar decrees the aims and programme for the development of Frankish society as a Christian society were outlined, and the speciic obligations of clergy and people deined.’237 However, arguments that rulers 230

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Patrick Wormald, ‘Lex scripta and Verbum regis: Legislation and Germanic kingship, from Euric to Cnut’, in P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (eds.), Early Medieval Kingship (Leeds, 1977), pp. 105–38, at p. 136. Pössel, ‘Authors’, pp. 270–3. Guy Halsall, Settlement and Social Organization:The Merovingian Region of Metz (Cambridge, 1995), p. 62. Rudolf Buchner, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter: Vorzeit und Karolinger. Beiheft: Die Rechtsquellen (Weimar, 1953) gives an overview of the Frankish legal sources. Wormald, Making, p. 45 refers to its ‘fossilization’. François-Louis Ganshof, Wat waren de capitularia?, Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België Klasse der Letteren 22 (Brussels, 1955); Stefen Patzold, ‘Normen im Buch: Überlegungen zu Geltungsansprüchen so genannter “Kapitularien”’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 41 (2007), 331–50. Wormald, Making, p. 50; Pössel, ‘Authors’, pp. 260–5. Siems, Handel, pp. 431–48 and McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 229–37 provide useful summaries of these debates. Hubert Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta: Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse, MGH Hilfsmittel 15 (Munich, 1995) gives details of the complex manuscript transmission of the capitularies. McKitterick, Frankish Church, p. 1. On the capitularies as providing moral instruction, see in particular Thomas Martin Buck, Admonitio und Praedicatio: Zur religiös-pastoralen Dimension von

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Moral texts and lay audiences promulgated capitularies purely for ideological reasons are unconvincing. Unlike with other contemporary reform texts, for example, there was no oicially circulated corpus.238 While some capitularies show a strong ‘programmatic’ focus, many also include detailed regulations on speciic topics, which are diicult to see as purely ideological.239 The intended audience was also probably wider than their original recipients, with counts and missi often expected to pass on information to others in their sphere of inluence.240 The relationship of the secular nobility to capitularies makes these texts particularly important for my study. The promulgation of many capitularies emphasised their consensual creation by the ruler together with the secular and clerical elite: in 779, for example, the Capitulary of Herstal states that ‘bishops, abbots and illustrious counts, gathered together in one synodal council with our most pious lord … consented to the decree’.241 Such consent is also regularly repeated in later capitularies, and seems more than nominal.242 This consensual ideology does not necessarily imply that there was an institutional framework within which capitularies were jointly produced by the ruler and his magnates. As Christina Pössel has shown, there is no simple connection between assembly debates and individual chapters of capitularies, and some capitularies were clearly not produced at assemblies.243 It is likely, however, that some sections of capitularies are relections of particular cases or short-term problems, and there is also evidence of particular clerics and laymen contributing to capitularies outside assemblies.244 Pössel sees the emphasis on consensus in the texts as relecting their implementation more than their production: ‘ideas of consensus were an integral part of capitularies because capitulary provisions depended on the recipients’ cooperation in their implementation’.245 She adds: ‘As much as capitularies were sent out and determined by the royal will, their very existence, as well as their contents, relected the realities of power.’246 It is perhaps in this sense of shared responsibility that a

238 240 242

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Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507–814), Freiburger Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte 9 (Frankfurt am Main, 1997). Siems, Handel, pp. 441–4. 239 Mordek, ‘Karolingische Kapitularien’, p. 27. Pössel, ‘Authors’, pp. 262–4. 241 Capitulare Haristallense 779, MGH Cap. i:20, p. 47. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Legislation and consensus in the reign of Charles the Bald’, in Patrick Wormald (ed.), Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford, 1983), pp. 202–27; Hubert Mordek, ‘Recently discovered capitulary texts belonging to the legislation of Louis the Pious’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 437–53, at pp. 443–4. Pössel, ‘Authors’, pp. 255–9. Nelson, ‘Legislation’, pp. 210–11, 7; Pössel, ‘Authors’, pp. 266–7. Pössel, ‘Authors’, p. 269. 246 Ibid., p. 270.

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Regulatory texts ninth-century Rheims scribe described Ansegisus’ collection of capitularies as ‘the chapters of the bishops, kings and particularly all the noble Franks [omnes nobiles franci]’.247 I have therefore assumed that where capitulary texts express moral views, the lay elite at least nominally concurred. The promulgation of decrees by church councils and popes, and the circulation of collections of canons were an older tradition than that of ‘barbarian’ law, with third-century roots.248 Whether such material should be seen as ‘canon law’ is more problematic: Mayke de Jong queries the usefulness of the concept for the early medieval period, seeing it as falsely implying a uniied corpus similar to Gratian’s code.249 Studies of early medieval church law have focused mainly on texts and their transmission.250 Less has been written on church courts between the audientia episcopalis (episcopal court) in late antiquity and the mid-ninth-century appearance of the Sendgericht (synodal court).251 Scholars of church law have also been slower than those working on early medieval secular law to consider motives for promulgating legislation beyond the purely legal. For my purposes, however, even if the textual products of church councils were intended more as programmatic or symbolic enactments than as enforceable law, they are still signiicant. From the 740s onwards, Carolingian rulers were anxious to hold regular assemblies and church councils, and many texts survive: Hartmann lists around 180 Carolingian synods, compared to 39 Visigothic and 62 247 248

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Nelson, ‘Legislation’, pp. 221–2. For historical overviews see for example Jean Gaudemet, Eglise et cité: Histoire du droit canonique (Paris, 1994); James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London, 1995). Mayke de Jong, quoted in ‘Current issues and future directions in the study of the Merovingian period’, in Ian Wood (ed.), Franks and Alamanni in the Merovingian Period: An Ethnographic Perspective, Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology 3 (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 371–453, at p. 390. See for example Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Knowledge of canon law in the Frankish kingdoms before 789: The manuscript evidence’, Journal of Theological Studies 36 (1985), 97–117; Lotte Kéry, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400–1140): A Bibliographical Guide to the Manuscripts and Literature, History of Medieval Canon Law 1 (Washington, DC, 1998); McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 249–59; Abigail Firey, Carolingian Canon Law project, http://ccl.rch.uky.edu/. On late antiquity see for example Jill D. Harries, ‘Resolving disputes: The frontiers of law in late antiquity’; Noel E. Lenski, ‘Evidence for the audientia episcopalis in the new letters of Augustine’; and Leslie Dossey, ‘Judicial violence and the ecclesiastical courts in late antique North Africa’, all in Ralph W. Mathisen (ed.), Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2001), pp. 68–82, 83–97, 98–114 respectively. On the Sendgericht see for example Albert Michael Koeniger, Die Sendgerichte in Deutschland, Veröfentlichungen aus dem Kirchenhistorischen Seminar München, 4th series 2 (Munich, 1907); and Wilfried Hartmann, ‘Zu Efektivität und Aktualität von Reginos Sendhandbuch’ and Rudolf Schiefer, ‘Zur Entstehung des Sendgerichts im 9. Jahrhundert’, both in Wolfgang P. Müller and Mary E. Sommar (eds.), Medieval Church Law and the Origins of the Western Legal Tradition: A Tribute to Kenneth Pennington (Washington, DC, 2006), pp. 33–49, 50–6 respectively.

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Moral texts and lay audiences Merovingian synods.252 Despite repeated attempts by scholars to distinguish between secular and ecclesiastical legislation, the boundaries remain blurred; some scholars have seen council acts and capitularies as fundamentally inseparable.253 There is repeated reuse of capitulary and conciliar material in later councils and collections of canons.254 Capitularies often promulgated the canons of recent councils,255 while we are sometimes explicitly told that members of the lay elite participated in synods,256 conirmed the canons,257 or shared responsibility for publicising the decisions.258 I have focused on eighth- and ninth-century conciliar texts, and have not used material from earlier synods, or the large corpus of forged canons from the period, except when cited by Carolingian councils.259 There is increasing evidence that conciliar decisions were circulated to a wider audience. Regino of Prüm’s handbook Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplines ecclesiasticis, for example, was intended to provide summaries of conciliar material, especially recent councils, so that Archbishop Hatto of Mainz had fewer volumes to carry with him on visitations.260 Several studies of episcopal capitularies (capitula episcoporum), meanwhile, suggest they are the ‘missing link’ between high-level pronouncements at assemblies and the practical implementation of reforms at the parish level.261 For reasons of space, however, I do not cover Regino’s collection or the episcopal capitularies in this book. Nor have I explored the material in particular collections of canons or manuscripts, since as yet it is unclear how accessible such works were to laymen. Eccard of Mâcon is known to have had a book of canons, but 252

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Hartmann, Die Synoden, p. 2. Wilfried Hartmann, ‘La Transmission et l’inluence du droit synodal carolingien’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger 63 (1985), 483–97 gives an overview of the manuscript transmission. Mordek, ‘Karolingische Kapitularien’, p. 29; Felten, ‘Konzilsakten’, p. 178. Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord: Priests and Episcopal Statutes in the Carolingian Period, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 6 (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 15–16. Mordek, ‘Karolingische Kapitularien’, p. 50. Hartmann, Die Synoden, pp. 9–10. 256 Ibid., p. 7 (Mainz 813). Ibid., p. 10 (Tribur 892). 258 Ibid., pp. 29–30 (Quierzy 857). On Carolingian forgeries see for example Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, ‘Ein Blick in Pseudoisidors Werkstatt: Studien zum Entstehungsprozess der falschen Dekretalen. Mit einem exemplarischen editorischen Anhang (Pseudo-Julius an die orientalischen Bischöfe, JK † 196)’, Francia 28 (2001), 37–90; Abigail Firey, ‘Codices and contexts:The many destinies of the Capitula Angilramni and the challenges of editing small canon law collections’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 125 (2008), 288–312. Regino of Prüm, Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters 42 (Darmstadt, 2004);Wilfried Hartmann,‘Zu Efektivität’, pp. 33–4. On these see McKitterick, Frankish Church, pp. 45–79, Peter Brommer, ‘Capitula episcoporum’: Die bischölichen Kapitularien des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts, Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental 43 (Turnhout, 1985); van Rhijn, Shepherds, pp. 24–48.

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Letters there is no mention of such books in the will of Eberhard, or that of his chaplain Walgar, to whom Eberhard may have given some of his books.262 When Count Stephen of the Auvergne was worried about the legality of a possible marriage, he allegedly went to his confessor:‘who showed me a book which, as I believe, is called canons’.263 It is not clear whether such behaviour was typical, or merely an elaborately planned excuse to escape a marriage he no longer wanted. As Stephen’s case shows, councils made a number of decisions on individual cases concerning laymen,264 while their general provisions also covered a wide range of topics related to lay life, ranging from care of the poor and the social position of the Jews, to marriage law and proprietary churches.265 In particular, councils’ eforts to regulate the sexual morality of laymen make their inclusion in this book essential. L ette r s The large number of letters surviving from the eighth and ninth century have in almost all cases been recopied into manuscripts, either as letter collections or miscellanies; as a result, letters providing moral or intellectual uplift are far more likely to have been preserved than those on practical or secular matters.266 Although the immediate audience for such texts is normally given by the address formula, a wider subsequent audience can therefore normally be presumed. The only surviving manuscript of Einhard’s letters, for example (Paris BnF, ms lat. 11379) was probably written at St-Bavo in Ghent, where Einhard was a lay abbot, but later in the ninth century was apparently taken to Laon and then used as a formulary.267 Some of the extant letter collections are of particular value for my work. Boniface’s letters, for example, were probably collected at the orders of two archbishops of Mainz: Lull and then Hrabanus.268 They provide crucial background information on the earliest Carolingian reform councils, in which Boniface played a signiicant role.

262 263 264 265 266

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Riché, ‘Les Bibliothèques’, p. 103; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 66–7. Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 89. On Stephen see Stone, ‘Bound’. Hartmann, Die Synoden, p. 5. Ibid., pp. 432–74 outlines the wide range of topics covered. On early medieval letters see Mary Garrison, ‘“Send more socks”: On mentality and the preservation context of early medieval letters’, in Mostert, New Approaches, pp. 69–100. Rio, Legal Practice, pp. 56–7. Boniface, Epistolae, ed. Michael Tangl, Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, Epistolae selectae in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae Historicis separatim editae 1 (Berlin, 1916); Palmer, ‘Vigorous rule’, pp. 252–6.

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Moral texts and lay audiences The large number of Alcuin’s letters that survive (over 300 sent by or to him) testify to his exceptional network of correspondents, far exceeding any of his contemporaries.269 They also suggest how much more of his correspondence may have been lost.270 Unusually, collections of Alcuin’s letters were made within his own lifetime, both at Tours and elsewhere.271 Alcuin’s letters have long been recognised as providing important evidence on eighth-century political history and also on the development of Carolingian royal ideology.272 Yet their overwhelming emphasis is on admonition. As Mary Garrison comments: ‘Alcuin was always ofering advice. The quantity of admonition and exhortation in his letters can give the impression that he was constantly shaking his inger at bishops, kings, former students, acquaintances and even people he had never met.’273 Of this vast admonitory corpus I have concentrated on the letters that Alcuin either addressed to lay people, or that focus on their activities.274 Research on Lupus of Ferrières and his letters has traditionally concentrated on his interests in classical literature. More recently, Thomas Noble has demonstrated how much his letters tell us about Lupus’ practical concerns as an abbot.275 The letters of Einhard similarly reveal the practical interests of another prominent noble, this time a layman.276 Although such letters have less incessant moralising than Alcuin’s, they are nevertheless revealing about the implicit moral assumptions of men with courtly connections. Hincmar’s letters are also an important source of insights into the practical applications of moral norms. As well as nearly 100 complete letters, we also have copies of some papal letters addressed to him, and hundreds of references to now lost letters of Hincmar, via the summaries 269

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273 274 275

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Alcuin, Epistolae. Mary Garrison, ‘Les Correspondants d’Alcuin’, in Depreux and Judic, Alcuin, pp. 319–31; Jullien and Perelman (eds.), Clavis scriptorum 2, pp. 171–354. Garrison, ‘Alcuin’s world’, pp. 266–315 provides a catalogue of lost letters whose existence can be inferred. On the collections see ibid., pp. 11–38; Bullough, Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation, pp. 35–110. See for example Jean Chélini, Le Vocabulaire politique et social dans la correspondance d’Alcuin, Annales de la Faculté des lettres d’Aix-en-Provence, Trauvaux et mémoires 12 (Aix-en-Provence, 1959); Mary Alberi, ‘The evolution of Alcuin’s concept of the Imperium christianum’, in Hill and Swan, Community, pp. 3–17. Garrison, ‘Alcuin’s world’, p. 73. On Alcuin’s intentions in such letters, see also ibid., pp. 326–30. See Chapter 1, p. 2. Lupus, Epistolae; Thomas F. X. Noble, ‘Lupus of Ferrières in his Carolingian context’, in Murray, After Rome’s Fall, pp. 232–50. Einhard, Epistolae, ed. K. Hampe, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 109–45. On Einhard’s letters see the papers by Brigitte Kasten and Martina Stratmann in Schefers, Einhard, pp. 247–67 and 323–39 respectively; Dutton, ‘Introduction’, pp. xxxi–xxxv.

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Conclusion of the tenth-century writer Flodoard.277 As a result, it is sometimes possible to observe sustained interactions with lay people. For example, we know of no fewer than thirteen letters between 846 and 855 discussing Falcric, whom Hincmar excommunicated for remarrying after his wife had entered the religious life.278 Conclusion This survey illustrates a number of signiicant points in the circulation of moral ideas. Firstly, interest in the moral instruction of lay noblemen was sustained over several generations. Although there are clear links between some Carolingian reformers, there was no single person or ‘school’ driving the concern.279 Instead, a more general discourse about lay conduct developed. Stuart Airlie has recently argued that Nithard’s Histories can be understood as almost intended to ‘mock’ Dhuoda’s mirror, or at least the wider views it represents, by providing anti-types of noble behaviour.280 Given that Nithard was probably killed ighting Dhuoda’s son William, a few years later, his pessimistic view of the Frankish nobility may have been justiied.281 Secondly, the Carolingian writers of moral texts were not cloistered theorists, who knew nothing of secular realities. Relatively few lived a purely monastic life; even men such as Regino and Notker, who did, had signiicant contacts with the world outside. Most of the authors discussed here were signiicant political igures, with close connections to royal courts and individual noblemen. Indeed, many moral texts could equally be classiied as political propaganda. Some texts, such as the lay mirrors, were speciically designed for lay use. Alcuin states that his advice in De virtutibus et vitiis has been put into individual chapters for ease of remembering.282 Some manuscripts 277

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Hincmar, Epistolae 1–206; Epistolae i–lv, PL 126, cols. 9–280; Flodoard of Rheims, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, ed. Martina Stratmann, MGH SS 36 (Hanover, 1998). The standard register remains Heinrich Schrörs, Hinkmar Erzbischof von Reims: Sein Leben und seine Schriften (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884), pp. 512–88. On letters received by Hincmar, see Martina Stratmann, ‘Briefe an Hinkmar von Reims’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 48 (1992), 37–81. Hincmar, Epistolae 15, 18, 24, 25, 40, 51, 59–63, 73, pp. 6–9, 24, 31, 33–5, 38; Pope Leo IV, Epistola 22, ed. A. de Hirsch-Gereuth, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 598–9. On the case, see Stone, ‘Bound’. Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, pp. 24–5 shows some of the connections between authors of moral texts. Airlie, ‘World’, pp. 68–71. 281 Janet L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (London, 1992), p. 141. DVV Introduction, p. 464.

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Moral texts and lay audiences of the mirrors resemble ‘handbooks’ in format.283 Thomas Noble has commented on the clear language of Carolingian moral treatises: ‘direct, unadorned and formulaic’.284 Charles the Bald’s commissioning of Nithard, not otherwise known as an author, to write on Charles’ conlicts with his brothers suggests that a lay perspective could be valued in itself. There is also evidence that moral texts were fulilling a demand by laymen. Eberhard’s life shows an active pursuit of both moral texts and personal instruction, and some noblemen apparently welcomed advice from Alcuin. Two of the four lay mirrors (those of Alcuin and Jonas) were written at the express request of their dedicatees.285 Paulinus’ mirror lacks a dedication letter, but his close relationship to Eric seems clear, while Dhuoda’s mirror shows a notable sense of lay initiative. Repeated copying of a number of moral texts shows their continued usefulness: we have manuscripts containing Carolingian capitularies from the twelfth century,286 while the mirrors of Alcuin and Jonas both received early modern translations.287 The audiences of moral texts, even those addressed to an individual, should be considered broadly. Both Jonas and Dhuoda, for example, envisaged the circulation of their mirror beyond the original addressee.288 Multiple connections of authors and audiences are sometimes visible. Jonas and Hincmar, for example, repeatedly reused and reworked their own material in diferent forms, conirming the irrelevance of conventional genre divisions to studies of moral discourses. Borrowing between texts was also commonplace. For example, Paris BnF ms lat. nouv. acq. 1632, a ninth-century manuscript from Orléans, includes extracts from the Fathers on the duties of princes, alongside 283

284 285

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Donald A. Bullough, ‘Alcuin’s cultural inluence: The evidence of the manuscripts’, in L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. Macdonald (eds.), Alcuin of York: Scholar at the Carolingian Court. Proceedings of the Third Germania Latina Conference, University of Groningen, May 1995, Germania latina 3 (Groningen, 1998), pp. 1–26, at p. 20 describes the oldest copy of DVV (Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, ms 1742) in these terms. Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, p. 29. Michel Rouche, ‘Miroirs des princes ou miroir du clergé?’, Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto medioevo occidentale, 4–10 aprile 1991, Settimane 39 (Spoleto, 1992),Vol. i, pp. 341–67 claims that mirrors were largely written at the initiative of the author rather than the recipient, but he does not distinguish between lay mirrors and mirrors for princes and he provides no good evidence for his claims that De virtutibus et vitiis was a pre-existing sermon, or that Matfrid of Orléans simply wanted Jonas to tell him if his marriage was valid or not. See for example Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium, pp. 34–43, 81–5 (Berlin, ms Lat. fol. 626; Bonn Universitätsbibliothek, ms S. 402). Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften, pp. 119, 199. See above, pp. 40–2.

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Conclusion parts of Jonas’ De institutione regia.289 Hans Hubert Anton sees this as a draft council text, or a collection of materials for one, assembled by Jonas around 836 and intended eventually for Louis the Pious. The patristic extracts reappear in Hincmar’s De regis persona et regio ministeria, probably based on lost acts from this earlier council.290 Some of the chapters of De virtutibus et vitiis became part of a common stock of moral ideas, drawn on in free adaptation by Old English homilists such as Ælfric and Wulfstan.291 Hucbald probably reused biblical quotations on marriage from Jonas’ De instutione laicali in his Vita Rictrudis.292 Marianne Elsakkers, meanwhile, has shown how views on abortion could be transferred between genres, languages and audiences at diferent social levels.293 Some texts clearly interacted with an audience in both written and oral forms. The ‘circulation poems’ of Charlemagne’s court were probably passed around in written form within a select group before being publicly performed.294 While Paulinus and Alcuin assumed that Eric and Wido could read Scripture for themselves, Jonas advised Matfrid to ‘read this [De institutione laicali] frequently, or have it read to you’.295 There is evidence of the public reading-out of capitulary texts by counts in the localities.296 The incorporation of extracts from the lay mirrors into conciliar texts and sermonaries similarly provided routes for their oral transmission. Finally, the exemplary role of lay noblemen should not be forgotten: both Jonas and Paulinus stress the pastoral role of the heads of households in their mirrors, including instructing their dependants in the mirror’s moral precepts.297 Similar demands for moral oversight appear in capitularies and council texts.298 References to young noblemen at court hint at an education that was both social and moral, an informal training in conduct in which exemplary igures played a key role.299 Thomas Noble, discussing the Carolingian noble ethos, concluded: ‘The elite could either read or hear accounts of the ethos that was appropriate to their station. But they also discussed that ethos in councils, 289

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294 295 296 297 298

Gerhard Laehr, ‘Ein karolingischer Konzilsbrief und der Fürstenspiegel Hincmars von Reims’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 50 (1935), 106–34. Anton, Fürstenspiegel, pp. 221–31. See Chapter 3, p. 80. Lees, ‘Dissemination’, p. 183. 292 Smith, ‘Hagiographer at work’, pp. 155–6. Marianne Elsakkers, ‘Genre hopping: Aristotelian criteria for abortion in Germania’, in K. E. Olsen, A. Harbus and T. Hofstra (eds.), Germanic Texts and Latin Models: Medieval Reconstructions, Germania Latina 4 (Leuven, 2001), pp. 73–92. Garrison, ‘Emergence’, p. 123. DVV 5, cols. 616–17; LE 9, col. 205; DIL Preface, col. 124. Matthew Innes, ‘Charlemagne’s government’, in Story, Charlemagne, pp. 71–89, at p. 80. See for example LE 29, 38, cols. 225–6, 239; DIL 2:16, cols. 197–9. See Chapter 6, pp. 176–7. 299 See Innes, ‘Place of discipline’; and Chapter 5, p. 138.

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Moral texts and lay audiences synods, and courts. The critical point is that this information was widely disseminated by various means over more than a century.’300 This chapter conirms the multiple ways in which moral ideals permeated the consciousness of lay noblemen. The next stage is to explore the details of those messages. 300

Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, pp. 24–30.

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Chapter 3

WAR FA RE

Warfare played an important social and cultural role in the Carolingian period.1 The Franks had long had a reputation as a warrior people. Annals were structured around annual campaigns, and warfare was a key aspect of a king’s role.2 Much poetry dealt with warfare, from the De conversione Saxonum carmen of 777, through to Abbo’s work at the end of the ninth century; the liturgy of warfare also developed considerably in the period.3 This Frankish culture of warfare was, like those in most periods, overwhelmingly male, although occasionally royal women directed military operations.4 In theory, warfare and the use of weapons were lay prerogatives: several texts refer to weapons and marriage as the two key markers of lay life.5 However, Friedrich Prinz showed that Charlemagne ‘institutionalised’ the military service of the higher clergy (bishops and abbots), making their participation in campaigns and warfare the norm, and weakening the canonical position that such men should not participate in war or carry weapons.6 1

2

3

4

5 6

On the ‘social militarisation’ of all of Europe in the early Middle Ages, see Dick Harrison, ‘The development of élites: From Roman bureaucrats to medieval warlords’, in Walter Pohl and Max Diesenberger (eds.), Integration und Herrschaft: Ethnische Identitäten und soziale Organisation im Frühmittelalter, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse: Denkschriften 301 (Vienna, 2002), pp. 289–300. Thomas Scharf, Die Kämpfe der Herrscher und der Heiligen: Krieg und historische Erinnerung in der Karolingerzeit (Darmstadt, 2002), pp. 109–14; Guy Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900 (London, 2003), pp. 25–30. On liturgy see Michael McCormick, ‘The liturgy of war in the early Middle Ages: Crisis, litanies, and the Carolingian monarchy’, Viator 15 (1984), 1–23; Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 347–87. See for example Nithard 3:4, pp. 33–4 (Hildegard, daughter of Louis the Pious); Regino 872, pp. 104–5 (Engelberga, wife of Louis II of Italy); AF(B) 896, pp. 127–9, and Regino 896, p. 144 (Angeltrude, mother of Lambert of Italy). See Chapter 1, pp. 7–8. Friedrich Prinz, Klerus und Krieg im früheren Mittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Rolle der Kirche beim Aufbau der Königsherrschaft, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 2 (Stuttgart, 1971),

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Warfare The composition of Carolingian armies is still debated, since the sources provide relatively little evidence and may often represent new or atypical practices.7 There is no consensus on whether military service was formally demanded of all those men of a particular social standing or instead armies were raised largely via informal patronage networks.8 What is clear is that participation in warfare was not restricted to one social class. Capitularies sometimes require ‘free men’ (liberi homines), including some very small-scale landholders, and even the unfree, to ight.9 Hrabanus Maurus, reworking a passage from Isidore on combat, omits a prohibition on slaves taking up arms.10 Professional warriors, whether within the households of kings, bishops and counts, or beneiced vassi, played an important role in the army.11 These elite warriors were normally mounted; they needed better weapons than the infantry, as well as training from an early age, and their ‘horses and arms’ were an important symbol of their status.12 Yet there is little evidence that such men were considered nobles.13 Matthew Innes sees the warrior Ripwin, who sold land to Lorsch in exchange for a horse, as coming from a family of prosperous peasants, although Guy Halsall is less sure about his social status.14 Ermoldus Nigellus recounts the cautionary tale of Datus, who lets his mother be killed by Saracens rather than ransom her with his horse.15 The traumatised Datus becomes a hermit on the site of the later monastery of Conques. Neither Ermoldus’ poem,

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pp. 73–113. Janet L. Nelson, ‘The church’s military service in the ninth century: A contemporary comparative view?’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and War: Papers Read at the Twenty-First Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Second Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 20 (Oxford, 1983), pp. 15–30 points out the importance of the church’s military service to Carolingian rulers. Timothy Reuter, ‘The end of Carolingian military expansion’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 391–405 summarises the capitulary evidence. See John France, ‘The composition and raising of the armies of Charlemagne’, Journal of Medieval Military History 1 (2002), 61–82; Halsall, Warfare and Society, pp. 75–101. Timothy Reuter,‘Plunder and tribute in the Carolingian empire’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th series 35 (1985), pp. 75–94, at pp. 89–91. Régine Le Jan, ‘Continuity and change in the tenth-century nobility’, in Duggan, Nobles, pp. 53–68, at p. 65. On vassi and other terminology for such men, see Chapter 6, pp. 198–9. Simon Coupland, ‘Carolingian arms and armor in the ninth century’, Viator 21 (1990), 29–50, at p. 50; Nelson, ‘Ninth-century knighthood’; Dominique Barthélemy, ‘La Chevalerie carolingienne: Prélude au xie siècle’, in Régine Le Jan (ed.), La Royauté et les élites dans l’Europe carolingienne (début Ixe siècle aux environs de 920) (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1998), pp. 159–75, at p. 162. See Reuter, ‘Plunder’, pp. 81–90; Régine Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Satellites et bandes armées dans le monde franc (viie–xe siècles)’, Le Combattant au Moyen Age: Proc. xVIIIe Congrès de la Société des Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur Public, Montpellier, 1987, Série histoire ancienne et médiévale 36 (Paris, 1995), pp. 97–109; Leyser, ‘Canon law’, pp. 563–4. Innes, State, pp. 147–50; Halsall, Warfare and Society, pp. 77–81. In honorem, 242–91.

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Christian traditions nor the early charters of Conques, explicitly show Datus as noble, or as owning the land on which Conques was built.16 Nevertheless, nobles clearly played an important military role. Their education, often at court, included military training.17 Counts, in particular, not only mobilised troops, but led them in battle and commanded armies; their loss in battle could be disastrous to morale.18 Lay and clerical magnates had personal military followings, sometimes very large: Archbishop John of Ravenna was alleged to have nearly 500 men, while Regino shows the Breton dux Vurfand with a personal force of around 200.19 Although most of the laymen described as having military entourages are counts, Hincmar refers to pueri and vassalli being kept by both greater and lesser men at court.20 The existence of non-noble combatants does not, of course, preclude a distinctive noble military culture. This chapter’s main emphasis will be on exploring nobles’ expected conduct in warfare. Firstly, though, we need to consider Carolingian moralists’ general attitudes to war, against the background of a longstanding Christian tradition. Christi an t raditions There is still great controversy about the early church’s views on warfare. Many scholars from the First World War onwards have seen the church as essentially paciist before the conversion of Constantine, when principles were ‘compromised’ to allow military service and warfare in support of a Christian empire. Ideas of just war were then developed to allow extensions of warfare.21 An older view that has now found new advocates points out that from at least the second century many soldiers were Christians, and that most Christians saw this as socially acceptable, part of fulilling one’s duty to the state.22

16 17

18

19 20 21

22

Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques, ed. Gustave Desjardins (Paris, 1879), pp. iii–vii, 409–11. Régine Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Apprentissages militaires, rites de passage et remises d’armes au haut Moyen Age’, in Education, apprentissages, initiation au Moyen Age: Actes du premier colloque international de Montpellier Université Paul-Valéry, novembre 1991, 2 vols., Les Cahiers du CRISIMA 1 (Montpellier, 1993),Vol. i, pp. 211–32; Innes, ‘Place of discipline’, pp. 61–8. Karl Leyser, ‘Early medieval warfare’, in Janet Cooper (ed.), The Battle of Maldon: Fiction and Fact (London, 1993), pp. 87–108, at pp. 97–8. Reuter, ‘Plunder’, p. 83; Regino 874, p. 109. De ordine 28, p. 82. See for example C. John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War: A Contribution to the History of Christian Ethics (London, 1919), pp. 244–65; Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes towards War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation (New York, 1960). See for example Adolf Harnack, Militia Christi: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries, trans. David McInnes Gracie (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 65–104; James Turner

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Warfare By the eighth century, multiple Christian views on warfare had been developed. Biblical authority could be used either to support the idea of holy war (drawing on the Old Testament and the inluential Book of Maccabees) or paciism.23 Ambrose and Augustine developed theories of just war combining Roman and Christian traditions.24 Yet Augustine’s views were not yet normative: authors such as Gregory the Great and Isidore of Seville developed deinitions and theories about war that drew little on Augustine.25 Prayers for combatants had already developed in late antiquity, as had soldier-saints,26 but some saints still renounced ighting. In particular, St Martin of Tours had allegedly declared: ‘I am Christ’s soldier, I am not allowed to ight.’27 Sulpicius Severus’ late-fourth-century vita of Martin was an inluential text in the Carolingian world, but since Eberhard of Friuli owned a copy both of this work and one of Vegetius’ military handbook, De re militari, Martin’s example of paciism was not necessarily decisive.28 J usti fying warfare Given these contradictory traditions, when was warfare regarded positively by Carolingian moralists? Scholarly discussions have frequently been framed in terms of the developments of just war theories, crusading and chivalry.29 Such frameworks possibly conceal as much as they reveal, encouraging a focus on speciic types of wars and ignoring other Carolingian conlicts. Etienne Delaruelle, for example, pointed out that

23

24 25

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Johnson, The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History (Princeton, 1987), pp. 53–68. Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd series 8 (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 8–11 lists some of the key texts. See for example Erdmann, Origin, pp. 7–11; Johnson, Quest for Peace, pp. 53–68. David A. Lenihan, ‘The inluence of Augustine’s just war: The early Middle Ages’, Augustinian Studies 27 (1996), 55–94. Barbero, ‘Santi laici’, pp. 126–8 sketches how the idea of the ‘holy warrior’ developed from the ifth century. The claim by Walter Gofart, ‘Conspicuous by absence: Heroism in the early Frankish era (6th–7th cent.)’, in Teresa Pàroli (ed.), La funzione dell’eroe germanico: Storicità, metafora, paradigma. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studio, Roma, 6–8 maggio 1993, Philologia 2 (Rome, 1995), pp. 41–56 that the late antique and early medieval church was largely hostile to warriors until the eighth century is based on a selective view of evidence, as Phillip Wynn, ‘Wars and warriors in Gregory of Tours’ Histories i–iv’, Francia 28 (2001), 1–35 suggests. See for example David Woods, ‘The military martyrs’, www.ucc.ie/milmart/ on the cults of military martyrs. Sulpicius Severus, Vita sancti Martini Turonensis, ed. and trans. Jacques Fontaine, Sulpice Sévere:Vie de Saint Martin, 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes 133 (Paris, 1967–9), c. 4,Vol. i, p. 260. McKitterick, Carolingians, pp. 246–7. On just war see for example Russell, Just War; on crusading for example Etienne Delaruelle, ‘Essai sur la formation de l’idée de croisade’, Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 42 (1941), 24–45, 86–103; Erdmann, Origin. For chivalry, see below, pp. 106–11.

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Justifying warfare all Charlemagne’s wars had ‘a religious character’, including those against Christian opponents, but then excluded from his study wars between ‘Christian princes’.30 Only warfare ordained, or at least sanctioned, by the ruler was generally regarded as legitimate;31 rulers tried to clamp down on the use of warlike violence in feuds and private conlicts (werrae).32 Any analysis must start from the fact that most Carolingian texts, particularly history and poetry, show a clear acceptance of this ‘public’ warfare, if not its actual gloriication. Carl Erdmann was wrong to suggest that only defensive actions were seen as just wars in the Early Middle Ages.33 Eighthcentury texts repeatedly justify or take for granted aggressive warfare against both Christian and non-Christian opponents. The religious motivation for attacks is sometimes stressed, as in the Saxon wars.The hostility of Charlemagne and his propagandists to Saxon paganism is clear from early on, as in the description of the destruction of the Irminsul sanctuary in 772.34 Similarly, the De conversione Saxonum carmen from 777 proclaims: Through the strength of virtues, through javelins smeared with gore He [Charlemagne] crushed down and subjected it [the Saxon people] to himself with a shimmering sword He dragged the forest-worshipping legions into the kingdoms of heaven.35

Both texts argue against Yitzhak Hen’s view that the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae and its demand for forced conversion were a late and ‘aberrant’ act by Charlemagne.36 Fifty years later, meanwhile, Einhard still referred back to Saxon paganism and immorality in repeatedly breaking oaths.37 Some discussions of the Avar wars also show a fervent religious atmosphere, such as the rhythmical poem on Pippin’s victory;38 the Royal 30 31

32

33 35

Delaruelle, ‘Essai’, p. 25. Karl Leyser, ‘Warfare in the western European Middle Ages:The moral debate’, in Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Gregorian Revolution and Beyond (London, 1994), pp. 189–203, at p. 191. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Violence in the Carolingian world and the ritualization of ninth-century warfare’, in Halsall, Violence and Society, pp. 90–107, at pp. 92–3. On feud, see Chapter 6, pp. 210–11. Erdmann, Origin, p. 31. 34 ARF 772, pp. 32–4. De conversione Saxonum carmen, 45–7, p. 64: Per vim virtutum, per spicula lita cruore Contrivit, sibimet gladio vibrante subegit: Traxit silvicolas ad caeli regna phalanges.

36 37

Yitzhak Hen, ‘Charlemagne’s jihad’, Viator 37 (2006), 33–51, at pp. 40–1. VK 7, pp. 9–10. 38 See Chapter 2, p. 54.

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Warfare Frankish Annals justiied one campaign against them by their ‘evil’ behaviour towards the church.39 An intense religious impression is also given by the litanies that Charlemagne ordered carried out during the campaign.40 Alcuin is the one eighth-century moralist who some scholars have considered was uneasy about aggressive warfare against non-Christians.41 As his letters show, however, it was forcible conversion, more than the conquest of pagans itself, that concerned him.42 He called Charlemagne’s victory over the Avars God-given,43 and his early poem on the history of York contains gory details of the Northumbrian ruler Oswald’s victory over the pagan kings Cadwallon and Penda.44 Alcuin was also happy with the use of armed force to protect missionaries: in a letter to Arno of Salzburg from 796 he comments: ‘the strength of the army, which goes with you, is arranged for your protection and defence’.45 Not all wars against pagans, however, are shown as motivated by religious fervour: later descriptions of the Avar wars, such as by Einhard and Notker, say nothing about religion, perhaps because the Avars were Christianised relatively quickly.46 The Wiltzites, who were attacked in 789, were probably not Christian then, but the Royal Frankish Annals do not mention this.47 Their ofence is said to have been the harassment and oppression of other Slav groups subject to or allied with the Franks. Nor does a discussion of their later revolt refer explicitly to their paganism.48 There is no consistent use of religious language by Frankish sources when discussing warfare against Saracens, in contrast to papal texts.49 Ernst Tremp contrasts Charlemagne, whose wars in Spain were undertaken for largely pragmatic reasons, with a later emphasis in Louis the Pious’ circle on Muslims as the enemies of God.50 Generally, authors 39 41

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45 46 47 48 49

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ARF 791, p. 88. 40 See Charlemagne’s letter to Fastrada, MGH Epp. 4, pp. 528–9. See for example Devisse, Hincmar,Vol. i, p. 529; Donald A. Bullough, ‘Was there a Carolingian antiwar movement?’, Early Medieval Europe 12 (2003), 365–76, at pp. 367–8; Halsall, Warfare and Society, p. 16. Alcuin, Epistola 110, pp. 157–9. See for example Alcuin, Epistolae 99 (to Paulinus; p. 143), 110 (to Charlemagne; p. 157). John Edward Damon, Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors: Warfare and Sanctity in the Literature of Early England (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 161–3. Alcuin, Epistola 107 to Arno, p. 153. VK 13, pp. 15–16; Notker 2:1, pp. 49–51. Alcuin, Epistola 6, p. 31 from late 789 asks if they have been converted. ARF Rev. 789, p. 85; ARF 808–12, pp. 126–37. John Gilchrist, ‘The papacy and war against the “Saracens”, 795–1216’, International History Review 10 (1988), 174–97, at pp. 181–3; and Devisse, Hincmar,Vol i, pp. 536–9 give selections from the papal letters. Ernst Tremp, ‘Zwischen Paderborn und Barcelona: König Ludwig von Aquitanian und die Auseinandersetzung des Karlreichs mit dem Islam’, in Godman, Jarnut and Johanek, Am Vorabend, pp. 283–99.

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Justifying warfare with connections to Italy and Aquitaine, such as Sedulius Scottus and the Astronomer, emphasise the religious aspect of the conlict against the Saracens more than those from regions more remote from Islamic inluence, such as Einhard and Notker. Yet even authors stressing Islamic ‘paganism’ did not necessarily interpret all warfare through such a lens. Ermoldus Nigellus portrays the Saracen leader Zado more favourably than the Christian Breton king Murman. Zado rules Barcelona with ‘powerful abilities’, while Murman is shown as a drunken and proud fool.51 The Astronomer is hostile to Saracens, seeing them as oppressors of the church, but he is even more scathing on the ‘impudence’ (petulantia) of the Basques.52 The aggressive wars of the Carolingians against Christian opponents, meanwhile, were justiied by a lexible rhetoric of rights and justice. Paul Fouracre shows that the Annales mettenses priores use the idea of iustitia (rights) to justify both the invasion of Neustria by Pippin II in 687 and the Carolingian invasion of Bavaria in 743.53 Indeed the annal for 743 goes further, in a revealing scene after the defeat of the Bavarians: ‘In the same battle [with the Bavarians], the priest Sergius was captured, the missus of the lord pope Zachary, who on the day before battle was joined was directed by Odilo [the Bavarian duke] to Carloman and Pippin [III] and falsely prohibited the war [falsoque bellum interdixerat] from the authority of the apostolic lord.’54 Sergius is led before the victorious Pippin, who recalls their previous conversation: You said to us yesterday that the apostolic lord by his authority and St Peter’s opposed our rights about the Bavarians, and we said to you that neither St Peter nor the apostolic lord ordered you to plead that case. Therefore know that if St Peter knew that justice was not ours, he would not have shown himself as our helper in this war. But now be certain that through the intercession of St Peter, prince of the apostles, by the judgement of God, which we did not delay undergoing, Bavaria and the Bavarians belong to the rule of the Franks.55 51 52

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In honorem, 350, 1458–99, 1560. Astronomer 2, 13, pp. 286, 314. Andreas Mohr, Das Wissen über die Anderen: Zur Darstellung fremder Völker in den fränkischen Quellen der Karolingerzeit, Studien und Texte zum Mittelalter und zur frühen Neuzeit 7 (Münster, 2005), pp. 145–216 gives a detailed discussion of Carolingian sources’ comments on a number of diferent military opponents, but unfortunately does not mention the Basques or Bretons. Paul Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice: The rhetoric of improvement and contexts of abuse’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo (secoli V–VIII), 7–13 aprile 1994, 2 vols., Settimane 42 (Spoleto, 1995),Vol. ii, pp. 771–803, at pp. 772–5. AMP 74, p. 34. Ibid. p. 35: ‘Dixisti enim nobis hesterna die, quod domnus apostolicus ex auctoritate sancti Petri et sua nostram iusticiam de Baioariis contradixisset, et nos diximus tibi, quod sanctus Petrus nec domnus apostolicus te istam causam non ordinasset dicere. Iccirco scias, si sanctus Petrus

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Warfare God’s demand for ‘justice’ for the Franks is here shown as overriding any duty of peacefulness between Christian rulers. Pippin’s denial that the pope himself wanted peace may have seemed entirely plausible to an audience in around 805, when this entry was written. In 787 the Royal Frankish Annals recorded Pope Hadrian’s reaction to a Bavarian appeal for the Pope to intercede with Charlemagne. Hadrian’s reply had been blunt, telling Tassilo that if he did not obey Charlemagne: then the lord king Charles and his army would be absolved from all peril of sin [peccatus], and whatever should be done in that land by way of burning or homicides or whatever evil would be upon the head of Tassilo and those agreeing with him, and the lord king Charles and the Franks would remain innocent of all fault [innoxi ab omni culpa] from that.56

The writer of the Annales mettenses priores, who repeats Hadrian’s statement in the entry for 787, may simply have wished to project such a papal attitude to the Bavarians further back into the past. Similar, if less detailed, justiications are shown for other expansionary wars against Christian opponents. Before their invasions of Italy, Pippin and Charlemagne both made claims about Lombard infringement of the iustitia of St Peter.57 As Donald Bullough comments: ‘no bishop is reported to have intervened to prevent the overthrow of the Lombard royal dynasty or the ultimately less-successful campaigns against Benevento’.58 Alcuin in 800 or 801 did plead with Charlemagne not to attack Duke Grimoald of Benevento, but his stress was on the dangers to the Carolingian army: ‘You know well how divine providence fought for you. It carried of the father and brother of this wicked man in a brief moment. It will do this likewise, we believe, if His holy will disposes, so that he may perish, and it may happen without any loss of your ideles.’59 Advising against a war was clearly a major step: Alcuin begs Charlemagne in the letter not to be angry with him for his suggestion. Once an ethnic group had come within the Frankish sphere of inluence, talk of rights and obedience could easily justify further aggression. Pippin’s initial attack on Duke Waifar of Aquitaine in 760 is explained

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cognovisset, quod nostra iusticia non fuisset, hodie in isto bello nobis adiutorium non prestitisset. Nunc vero certus esto, quod per intercessionem beati Petri apostolorum principis, per iudicium Dei, quod subire non distulimus, Bawariam Bawariosque ad Francorum imperium pertinere.’ ARF 787, p. 76; McKitterick, Charlemagne, p. 124. Matthias Becher, Eid und Herrschaft: Untersuchungen zum Herrscherethos Karls des Großen, Vorträge und Forschungen Sonderband 39 (Sigmaringen, 1993), pp. 58–63, who rejects much of what the Royal Frankish Annals say about Tassilo, does not speciically suspect this statement. ARF 755, 756, 773, pp. 12, 14, 34. Bullough, ‘Anti-war movement’, p. 366. 59 Alcuin, Epistola 211, p. 352.

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The rise of peacefulness? in the source by the duke’s refusal to observe the rights of Frankish churches holding property in Aquitaine; the continuator of Fredegar also mentions Pippin’s demands for the return of Franks who had led to Aquitaine and compensation for illegal killing of Goths.60 Owing to Waifar’s ‘deiance’ Pippin was ‘forced unwillingly’ (inuitus coactus) to attack him.61 Waifar submitted, but the next year sent a raiding party into Francia.62 In response, Pippin launched a campaign that continued until his death in 768, refusing an earlier ofer of submission and tribute by Waifar ‘by the counsel of the Franks and magnates’.63 Attacks on the Bretons from 786 onwards were sometimes justiied by vague claims of failure to pay tribute, ‘rebellion’ or unchristian behaviour, but sometimes simply reported by annalists.64 The shared faith of Franks and Bretons could be used to strengthen alliances: Charles the Bald, for example, used baptismal sponsorship to create bonds between himself and Breton leaders.65 At other times, however, this common belief provided a justiication for aggressively imposing Carolingian hegemony. Julia Smith argues that Louis the Pious saw the Bretons and the Gascons as a challenge to his vision of one Christian empire and thus adopted an aggressive policy towards them.66 Overall, descriptions of warfare against Christian and non-Christian opponents difer surprisingly little. Victories over Christian opponents were described as ‘God-given’, in the same way as those over pagans.67 Such Carolingian attacks on other Christians were also incorporated into a narrative of Frankish Christian history. Ermoldus Nigellus, for example, twice recounts an emblematic sequence of Carolingian victories in which Charles Martel conquers the Frisians, Pippin III conquers the Aquitanians and Charlemagne conquers the Saxons.68 The ri se of peace f ul ne s s? Authors were thus happy to show rulers ighting both Christian and non-Christian opponents. A lexible rhetoric of ‘rights’ and ‘rebellion’ could justify most campaigns, however aggressive. Most of the warfare mentioned so far, however, took place in the eighth century. A number

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ARF 760, p. 18; Fredegar 41, pp. 109–10. On this text see Roger Collins, Die Fredegar-Chroniken, MGH Studien und Texte 44 (Hanover, 2007), pp. 1–7, 82–145. Fredegar 41, p. 110. 62 Ibid. 42, p. 111. 63 Ibid. 47, p. 116. See for example ARF 786, 799, 811, 818, 824, pp. 72, 108, 135, 148, 164–5. Smith, Province and Empire, pp. 108–15. 66 Ibid., pp. 60–2. See for example ARF 755 (Lombards), 786 (Bretons), 788 (Greeks), pp. 12, 72, 82. In honorem, 2156–63; Ermoldus, Ad eundem Pippinum, 151–160.

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Warfare of scholars have argued for more peaceful Frankish attitudes after 800 and a new reluctance for warfare.69 Paul Kershaw, for example, sees four phases in attitudes to peace: in the second, after 800, peace-making had ‘an imperial aspect … This emphasis coincided with a reduction in the number of campaigns fought by Carolingian forces. Thus, the emphasis upon peace both relected, and justiied, a relaxation of the earlier, war-like attitudes of the Franks.’70 This ‘peaceful’ culture has sometimes been seen as particularly characteristic of the western Frankish kingdom under Charles the Bald,71 as contrasted with the eastern Franks under Louis the German.72 There are several diferent aspects to this question. One important change was the rise of conlicts between diferent Carolingian rulers after the division of the kingdom in 840, a form of warfare that had been rare since the death of Grifo in 753. Ideologically, such wars were clearly far more problematic than ighting external enemies.73 The Annales Bertiniani describe Louis the Pious in 839 as ‘deeply worried about spilling the blood of a people who felt themselves one’.74 The Fulda Annals provide an elaborate justiication for why Louis the German ‘had’ to attack Charles the Bald in 858.75 A similar picture emerges from Nithard, who provides a particularly direct insight into secular noble values. Much of the conlict he records consists of attempts either to negotiate with opponents or to subvert their supporters, rather than actual ighting.76 When Nithard occasionally speaks of military activity other than the civil war, however, his attitude is very diferent. He approvingly describes Louis the German’s response

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See for example Reuter, ‘End’, pp. 391–2; Werner, ‘Hludovicus Augustus’, pp. 11–12. Jean Flori, L’Idéologie du glaive: Préhistoire de la chevalerie,Travaux d’histoire éthico-politique 33 (Geneva, 1983), p. 56 claims that the aristocracy at the end of the ninth century ‘dédaigne un peu’ the profession of arms. Paul J. E. Kershaw, ‘Rex paciicus: Studies in royal peacemaking and the image of the peacemaking king in the early medieval west’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London (1998), p. 72. Compare Thomas F. X. Noble, ‘Louis the Pious and the frontiers of the Frankish realm’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 333–47, at pp. 339–40. Devisse, Hincmar, Vol. i, p. 534 claims that Carolingian reform ‘a exalté la paix, la non violence et l’arbitrage’. Eric J. Goldberg, ‘“More devoted to the equipment of battle than the splendor of banquets”: Frontier kingship, martial ritual, and early knighthood at the court of Louis the German’, Viator 30 (1999), 41–78. Goldberg seriously overestimates the novelty of Louis the German’s military ethos: most of the elements he describes are also visible under other Carolingian rulers. Nelson, ‘Ninth-century knighthood’, p. 263: ‘the warfare that pitted Frank against Frank was exceptionally hard to justify’. AB 839, p. 17. 75 AF 858, pp. 49–50. See for example Nithard 2:1, 2:4, 2:9, 3:3, pp. 13–14, 16–17, 23–4, 31–3.

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The rise of peacefulness? to the Stellinga uprisings: ‘Louis, however, nobly suppressed the rebels in Saxony, not without legal slaughter [legalis cedes].’77 As this shows, it was not so much ‘civil war’ that was problematic, as ighting one’s immediate family. Boso’s attempt to make himself king in Provence was regarded simply as rebellion and irmly suppressed by co-operating Carolingian rulers.78 Pippin II of Aquitaine appears to have been regarded as outside the ‘family circle’ for many purposes, perhaps because Louis the Pious had not sanctioned his accession. Louis was quite happy to send an army to ‘attack and crush the Aquitanian rebels’ who had joined with Pippin II, and he also campaigned against them himself.79 This exclusion of Pippin continued after Louis’ death: Charles the Bald made frequent attacks on Pippin in 843 and Pippin’s army seems to have shown no hesitation in killing large numbers of Charles’ men in 844.80 Much ninth-century moralising against war appears in this context of conlict between legitimately ruling relatives. Many moralists, however, combined disapproval of such a kind of ighting with a wish for warfare to be directed against external enemies. Regino lamented that the battle of Fontenoy so weakened the ‘strength and famous virtue [virtus] of the Franks’ that the kingdom could no longer be expanded.81 Agobard of Lyons, criticising Louis the Pious in 833, deplores the preparations being made for civil war, ‘when the army ought to have been sent against external peoples, and the emperor himself should have fought against barbarian nations, so that he might have subjected them to the faith [eas idei subiugaret] and extended the boundary of the kingdom of the faithful.’82 Family conlicts within the Carolingian dynasty also provoked the only two examples of Carolingian authors making substantial use of just war theory. Hincmar in De regis persona et regio ministeria drew explicitly on Augustine’s theories, arguing that expansionary wars could be justiied by the wickedness of surrounding nations and that it was not a sin to wage war with God’s authority.83 Jean Devisse claims that Hincmar’s text showed doubts among Charles the Bald’s circle about the legitimacy of warfare, but there is no evidence of this.84 Hincmar’s tract includes several chapters arguing for the severe punishment of relatives of the king who sin, including use of the death penalty.85 It is most likely that the 77 78

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Ibid. 4:4, p. 45. Cf. ibid. 4:6, pp. 48–9. Simon MacLean, ‘The Carolingian response to the revolt of Boso, 879–887’, Early Medieval Europe 10 (2001), 21–48. AB 839, 840, pp. 22–4. 80 AF 843, p. 34; AB 844, pp. 30–1. Regino 841, p. 75. 82 Agobard, Liber apologeticus i:3, p. 310. De regis 7, 9, cols. 840–1. 84 Devisse, Hincmar,Vol. i, p. 532. Ibid.,Vol. ii, pp. 714–16.

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Warfare text was produced in 873 in connection with the rebellion of Charles’ son Carloman. Hincmar may have found Augustine’s moral discussions of war in purely abstract terms invaluable ammunition in justifying the one kind of war that did concern many Franks: a civil war against a king’s own relatives. Nor was Hincmar the only author to see the potential of these ideas: his Augustinian texts came via an intermediary source. Many chapters share material with a collection of extracts from the Fathers found in a ninth-century manuscript from Orléans (Paris BnF lat. nouv. acq. ms 1632). Hans Hubert Anton sees this manuscript, also containing extracts from Jonas’ De institutione regia, as a draft council text, or a collection of materials for one assembled by Jonas. He probably made this around 836 and intended the inal work for Louis the Pious.86 Since Louis had already sufered numerous revolts by his sons, he too may have appreciated a work that legitimised any future military action against them. Ninth-century warfare against external enemies gives little sign of a new mood of peacefulness. After 800 Carolingian warfare certainly became increasingly defensive, especially because of the signiicant threat from Vikings.87 Such defensiveness should not be confused with peacefulness, however; when rulers made ‘ad hoc responses of a defensive nature to external threats’,88 their choice was often a military rather than a diplomatic reaction. Ofers of peace by opponents were not invariably accepted: the Royal Frankish Annals record peace treaties being refused with the Danes in 817 and with Liudewit, dux of Lower Pannonia in 819; they also report the deliberate breaking of peace treaties with the Saracens in 815 and 820.89 Violence was repeatedly used against Breton ‘rebellions’.90 Viking raids were dealt with by military force as well as by buying of the invaders.91 At a more abstract level, the increasing rhetoric of ‘peace’ in the ninth century should not be misinterpreted. As several studies of the meaning of ‘peace’ in the period show, it was not simply seen as the opposite of war.92 Alcuin, for example, in his long eulogy on peace in De virtutibus et vitiis, states: ‘He who disdains to be peaceable [paciicus] denies God is his Father. But this peace is to be kept with the good and those keeping the 86 89 90 91

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See Chapter 2, pp. 66–7. 87 Reuter, ‘End’. 88 Ibid., p. 392. ARF 815, 817, 819, 820, pp. 143, 145, 150, 153. Ibid. 811, 818, 822, 824, pp. 135, 148, 159, 164–5; AB 837, p. 14. Simon Coupland, ‘The Frankish tribute payments to the Vikings and their consequences’, Francia 26 (1999), 57–75; Simon Coupland, ‘The Carolingian army and the struggle against the Vikings’, Viator 35 (2004), 49–70. Kershaw, ‘Rex paciicus’, pp. 20–5.

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The rise of peacefulness? precepts of God, not with the iniquitous and wicked, who have peace among themselves in their sins.’93 He adds later in the chapter that peace is ‘the joy of the country and the terror of the enemy, whether visible or invisible’.94 A ‘love of peace’ did not therefore exclude military action against enemies; instead war was seen as an acceptable way of obtaining peace.95 Several authors praise rulers as ‘peaceful’ while lauding their battles: Nithard describes Charlemagne’s reign as a time of ‘peace and concord everywhere’, while Regino called Carloman of Bavaria paciicus and then goes on to refer to his ‘very many wars’.96 Many Carolingian moralists also reveal an intimate connection between peace and the submission of enemies. Charlemagne ordered litanies said during the Avar campaign of 791 to ask God for ‘peace, health, victory and a successful march’.97 Agobard quotes a prayer from the Gelasian Sacramentary: ‘Let us pray for our most Christian emperor, that our Lord God may make all barbarian nations subject to him for our eternal peace.’98 Ermoldus Nigellus similarly sees victorious war as a prerequisite for peace.99 Hincmar, following Augustine, gives one clause of the Sermon on the Mount an unexpected twist: ‘Be peaceable [paciicus] therefore in ighting, so that by conquering you may lead those you have overcome to the usefulness of peace. For the Lord says: Blessed are the peaceable, for they will be called the sons of God.’100 Another striking example is the Fulda Annals of 876, where Louis the German is reported as saying: ‘the Old People [i.e. the Jews] were absolutely forbidden to make war even on the nations around them unless they had irst refused peace’.The reference is probably to Deuteronomy 20:10–21, in which the cities who make peace with the Jews become their tributaries; those who do not and are subsequently conquered have their men massacred.101 Sedulius Scottus has been seen as a key writer in the development of the idea of the rex paciicus (peaceable king), despite his sometimes 93 94 95 97

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DVV 6, col. 617. Ibid.: ‘patriae laetitia, et terror hostium sive visibilium, sive invisibilium’. Halsall, Warfare and Society, pp. 18–19. 96 Nithard 4:7, p. 49; Regino 880, p. 116. Epistolae variorum Carolo Magno regnante scriptae 20, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 496–567, at p. 528. Agobard, Liber apologeticus i:3, pp. 310–11. Scharf, Die Kämpfe, pp. 60–2. Kershaw, ‘Rex paciicus’, pp. 149–67 has an enlightening analysis of peacemaking rituals in Ermoldus, but ignores this ambiguity in Ermoldus’ concepts of peace. De regis 10, col. 842, citing Augustine of Hippo, Epistola 189, c. 6, which itself quotes Matthew 5:9, to Count Boniface; see Augustine of Hippo, Epistulae, ed. A. Goldbacher, 4 vols., CSEL 34, 44, 57–8 (Vienna, 1895–1911),Vol. iv, p. 135. AF 876, p. 87: ‘quandoquidem nec exteris gentibus bellum est antiquo populo penitus inferre praeceptum, nisi pacem oblatuam respuerint’. The same statement had already been made by the Council of Worms in 868 (see below, p. 83) and the Fulda annalist may have drawn on this.

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Warfare gory poetry.102 Yet while Sedulius stresses the risks of war in his mirror for princes, Liber de rectoribus christianis, and encourages the virtue of concord, this does not exclude warfare ‘when a most necessary and just cause demands’.103 The ruler in warfare must put his trust in God, but Sedulius quotes examples of victories won with bloodshed as well as without.104 For Sedulius, ultimately, the problem with warfare was not that the strong defeat the weak, but that this could not invariably be relied upon. As with other Carolingian authors, any ‘increase in peacefulness’ is marginal. I mage s of th e warrior Against this background of warfare as an acceptable and political option, how did Carolingian moralists see the warrior himself? Some scholars have argued for uneasiness about the warrior’s role, drawing mainly on the penitentials, which often impose penances on those killing in combat.105 The signiicance of the penitentials should not be overstated, however. Raymund Kottje and David Bachrach have demonstrated that such penances were not a Carolingian innovation, but came from insular models, and that the penances imposed were relatively low. Most eighth- and ninth-century penitentials had penances of forty days speciically for killing in (public) war, while some continental penitentials extended this to twenty-two weeks for killings on campaign ‘without good cause’.106 It is also not clear that penances for such acts necessarily implied moral culpability.107 At least some Carolingian moralists rejected the idea of killing in warfare as automatically sinful. Jonas and, following him, Hincmar, cited Augustine as saying that soldiers who kill on command do not sin.108 102

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Kershaw, ‘Rex paciicus’, pp. 88–9. Sedulius, Carmen ii:8, p. 177, lines 30–2, for example, describes a Viking defeat: ‘Testis et campus madidus cruore, / Indicat litus rutilum tropaeum / Ossibus albens’ [‘The ield sodden with blood is a witness. The shore discloses the red victory memorial white with bones.’] LRC 17, p. 77. On Sedulius’ views on peace-making in LRC, see below, pp. 92–3. Ibid. 14, 15, pp. 63–4, 66–70. See for example Erdmann, Origin, pp. 16–17; Flori, L’Idéologie, pp. 17–19. Kottje, Bußbücher, pp. 240–1; David S. Bachrach, ‘Confession in the Regnum Francorum (742–900): The sources revisited’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 54 (2003), 3–22, at pp. 19–20. Albert Demyttenaere, ‘The cleric, women and the stain: Some beliefs and ritual practices concerning women in the early Middle Ages’, in Werner Afeldt (ed.), Frauen in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter: Lebensbedingungen – Lebensnormen – Lebensformen (Sigmaringen, 1990), pp. 141–65, at pp. 150–1. Laehr, ‘Ein karolingischer Konzilsbrief ’, p. 120, c. 7; De regis 11, col. 842.

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Images of the warrior A canon from the Council of Worms in 868 said that someone who killed a pagan ‘from prepared hatred or because of avarice’ should be considered as a homicide. Since it added that the Old Testament Jews were not allowed to wage war on foreign peoples unless they had spurned peace ofers, the implication is that killing pagans in battle was entirely acceptable.109 Halitgar of Cambrai’s penitential imposed no compulsory penance on those killing in self-defence in battle, and probably formed the basis of the Frankish bishops’ ordinances for the armies of Charles the Bald and Louis the German after the battle of Fontenoy.110 Other rituals after this battle seem to have been aimed more at assuaging the particular concerns about civil war than more general guilt about bloodshed. In contrast, Hrabanus Maurus, who had supported the losing side at Fontenoy, speciically rejected the view that deaths in battle required no penance. He saw killing in war for avarice or to win a lord’s favour as sinful, and implied that all killing required penitence, though without stating speciic tarifs.111 Such a view, however, does not imply that Hrabanus opposed all warfare, or that he saw bloodshed as taboo. Jean Flori claimed that such taboos were the basis of the eighth- and ninth-century church’s ‘suspicion’ of war, but another text by Hrabanus suggests otherwise.112 In around 855 he sent Lothar I extracts from Vegetius’ De re militari, as useful advice for the emperor during the frequent Viking attacks. The text includes a reference to how Roman soldiers were taught to strike with the point of the sword and not the edge, since the point could often kill when ‘driven in two inches’.113 As well as using the evidence of the penitentials, Carl Erdmann saw ‘the reticent attitude adopted by the church towards the secular profession of arms’ relected in the lack of discussion by Jonas and other lay mirror writers of the practical morality of war.114 The lay mirrors do indeed say little on war; attempts to label them as ‘advice for warriors’ are inappropriate.115 Paulinus and Alcuin focus on spiritual rather than 109 110 112 113

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Council of Worms 868, MGH Conc. 4:25, p. 265, c. 3. See above, p. 81. Nelson, ‘Violence’, pp. 100–1. 111 Kottje, Bußbücher, pp. 241–4. Flori, L’Idéologie, pp. 17–18. Hrabanus Maurus, De procinctv Romanae miliciae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, Neue Folge 3 (1872), pp. 443–51, at p. 446, c. 7.The dedicatory letter is edited as Epistola 57, MGH Epp. 5, p. 515. Erdmann, Origin, pp. 16–17. See for example Luitpold Wallach, ‘Alcuin on virtues and vices: A manual for a Carolingian soldier’, Harvard Theological Review 48 (1955), 175–95; Marcelle Thiébaux’s translation of Dhuoda’s Liber manualis, entitled Dhuoda: Handbook for Her Warrior Son:‘Liber manualis’, Cambridge Medieval Classics 8 (Cambridge, 1998).

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Warfare actual warfare, while Jonas’s only military advice is that warriors should pray before going to war.116 Dhuoda has only a little more on the noble as warrior. Although Jean Flori is incorrect to say she never uses the word miles, her manual uses it only once, and she prefers other terms, such as the biblically inluenced commilitiones (comrades).117 Few of her biblical models for William were particularly noted for their role as warriors, and even Judas Maccabaeus is mentioned only as an example of how to pray for the dead.118 Implicitly, however, extremely violent warfare was acceptable to Dhuoda, since she praised King David’s captains Joab and Abner as examples of loyalty.119 The combination is peculiar: Joab actually murdered Abner, during a lethal career that included several other murders, the killing in battle of the defenceless Absalom and the mass destruction of cities.120 Such behaviour may not have been what Dhuoda positively wanted for William, but she never states any military limits that William should observe when demonstrating his loyalty to his father, to Charles the Bald, and to God. A positive view of warfare is also implicit in Paulinus’ discussions of the spiritual and earthly warrior. Although in some sections of the Liber exhortationis the miles terrenus is the negative contrast of the miles spiritualis, obsessed with the world rather than spiritual joys, in others the miles terrenus becomes a model of obedience and discipline for the would-be spiritual warrior. I. Deug-Su provides a detailed examination of how Paulinus, creating a lay ethic, adapts key passages from his sources (Julianus Pomerius’ De vita contemplativa and Pseudo-Basil’s Admonitio ad ilium spiritualem).121 The result is to valorise earthly power in the igure of the warrior. Paulinus’ works also demonstrate how genres varied in the attention paid to warfare. His lament on Eric of Friuli’s death in 799 celebrates Eric’s civil and military activities more speciically than the Liber exhortationis: He was generous in oferings to churches father of the poor, support of the wretched the greatest consolation of widows here how mild, how dear to priests, 116 117 118 120 121

LE 20, cols. 212–14; DVV 34, pp. 34–7; DIL 1–14, col. 150. Flori, L’Idéologie, p. 51; LM 4:8, p. 148. LM 8:16, p. 206. 119 Ibid. 3:4, p. 92. See for example 2 Samuel 3:22–31; 11:14–21; 18:4–17; 20:7–10; 1 Kings 11:15–16. I. Deug-Su, ‘La “saecularis potestas” nei primi “specula” carolingi’, in Culto cristiano, politica imperiale carolingia, Convegni del Centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale, Università degli studi di Perugia 18 (Todi, 1979), pp. 363–446, at pp. 378–87.

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Images of the warrior powerful in arms, ine in mind He tamed very savage barbarian peoples.122

This poem argues against the view of some literary scholars that the warrior hero was a problematic igure for early medieval religious authors.123 Indeed, it is through Carolingian poetic and historical texts written by such men that we get the clearest picture of the implicit norms of the noble as warrior. Participation and bravery Eagerness for combat was not restricted solely to laymen in the period; some noblemen in religious orders clearly shared a desire for combat.124 A number of scholarly clerics, however, stressed their own incompetence or reluctance for war, in a way seemingly not available to laymen. Paul the Deacon and Alcuin both asked to be excused from joining Charlemagne on campaign.125 Alcuin was particularly insistent: ‘What use is the weakness [inirmitas] of Flaccus [his nickname] among arms, a leveret among boars, a little lamb among lions, raised and educated in peace, not engaged in battles? Since you have the precepts of the Lord God, let the timid [timidus] stay at home so as not to make others fear.’126 Ermoldus shows Pippin of Aquitaine laughing at his military incompetence when he takes part in the Breton campaign of 825.127 Lupus of Ferrières similarly stresses his incapacity:‘As you know, I have not learned how to strike an enemy or evade him, nor indeed to carry out all the other duties of the infantry and cavalry.’128 Several letters show him trying to get himself and his abbey’s men exempted from campaign.129 In 122

Paulinus, Carmen 2, stanzas 5–6, p. 131: Aecclesiarum largus in donariis, pauperum pater, miseris subsidium, hic viduarum summa consolatio erat: quam mitis, karus sacerdotibus, potens in armis, subtilis ingenio. Barbaras gentes domuit sevissimas

123

124

125 127 129

On this see Chapter 2, pp. 37–8. Cf. Sedulius, Carmen ii:39, 67, pp. 202–3, 220–1 on Count Eberhard. See for example Kratz, Mocking Epic, pp. 1–2; Bernard F. Huppé, ‘The concept of the hero in the early middle ages’, in Norman T. Burns and Christopher Reagan (eds.), Concepts of the Hero in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London, 1976), pp. 1–26, at p. 23. See for example Lupus, Epistola 106, Vol. ii, p. 138 (Abbot Odo of Corbie); Abbo ii:436 (Abbot Ebolus). Bullough, ‘Anti-war movement’, p. 367. 126 Alcuin, Epistola 145, pp. 234–5. In honorem, 2016–19. 128 Lupus, Epistola 72,Vol. ii, p. 12. See for example ibid. 45, 111,Vol. i, p. 186–93;Vol. ii, pp. 154–7.

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Warfare contrast, Einhard, the only well-documented layman who is never shown as a warrior,130 does not use this theme. Yet these clerics’ military incompetence and a wish to avoid their own participation in warfare did not necessarily imply any opposition to it in principle, as some historians have suggested.131 Paul’s historical writings and the poems of Alcuin and Ermoldus hardly suggest an abhorrence of warfare.132 Lupus also makes occasional positive comments on successful warfare. In 844 he sent Charles the Bald an abbreviated history of the Roman emperors, particularly commending the examples of Trajan and Theodosius, far from the most paciic of the emperors.133 In around 860, he wrote a letter to Gerhard, dux of Provence, celebrating his victory over the Vikings as God-given.134 In contrast to these clerics, Carolingian lay noblemen were clearly expected to ight on occasion.135 Ermoldus shows Louis the Pious and his counsellors discussing a possible campaign against the rebel city of Barcelona. Lupus Santio, a Basque leader, argues for peace; Louis, however, prefers the advice of William, dux of Toulouse, who tells him that peace can only be obtained by capturing Barcelona.136 Cowardice by the exalted could negate the normal social order.Thegan calls Count Hugh of Tours ‘timid’ and describes him as publicly mocked as a coward by his own household;137 as Mayke de Jong comments, this defamatory claim by Thegan seems to draw on a ‘Carolingian aristocrat’s worst nightmare’.138 In Waltharius, after the inal battle,Walter wants Hildegund to serve both himself and Hagan with drink before King Gunther, because of Gunther’s half-hearted ighting: Hagan’s response is that Walter should drink before him, since he is ‘braver’ (fortior) than himself.139 A nobleman’s behaviour in war relected on his whole ancestry: earlier in the poem Gunther taunts Hagan as a coward like his father when Hagan urges him to make peace with Walter. A later speech by Hagan makes clear that he bitterly resents the king’s insult to his family.140 Yet such expectations about laymen’s role in combat were not solely concerned with the elite. Texts that distinguish between warriors and non-warriors normally focus on laymen and religious as a whole, not simply the nobility. A letter of Pope Zachary to Pippin and the Frankish bishops, abbots and magnates in 747 stressed this distinction: ‘It is suitable 130 131 132 134 135 136 138 140

Smith, ‘Einhard’, pp. 62, 76. Flori, L’Idéologie, p. 75; Bullough, ‘Anti-war movement’, pp. 367–8. On Alcuin see above, p. 74. 133 Lupus, Epistola 37,Vol. i, p. 164. Ibid. 110,Vol. ii, p. 150. Leyser, ‘Canon law’, p. 563: ‘A non-belligerent lay noble was a monster.’ In honorem, 162–98. 137 Thegan 28, 55, pp. 216, 250. De Jong, Penitential State, p. 252. 139 Waltharius, lines 410–19. Ibid., 629–31, 1067–72.

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Images of the warrior for princes and secular men [homines] and warriors [bellatores] to have care and concern about the cunning of enemies and the defence of the province.’141 Similarly, Jonas in a text from 825 describes how Louis the Pious corrected and ordered his empire, so that ‘the lay order [laicus ordo] served justice and by arms defended the peace of the church’.142 Jean Flori wishes to see these and similar references as referring only to the elites, but Carolingian authors chose not to conceptualise social divisions in those terms.143 Other sources also show a warrior ideology that extended beyond the elite. The famous military deeds of otherwise unknown men were recorded.144 Salic law punished unproven accusations of cowardice against free men.145 A graphic illustration of the acceptability of lay warfare is given in Willibald’s description of Boniface’s martyrdom, which initially seems to be glorifying paciism. Boniface forbids his retinue (pueri) to ight their pagan attackers, and they are then martyred without resistance.146 Their killers then ight among themselves over their booty. However, not all the attackers die; those who survive are then killed by a band of avenging ‘Christians’, who ‘return home with both the wives and children of the pagan worshippers and their servi and ancillae as booty’.147 The clear message is that paciism is only for saints, and then only in exceptional circumstances: the initial reaction of Boniface’s men to the attack had been to reach for their arms, showing they were not normally paciist. Dominic Barthélemy sees a ‘chivalric’ ideology developing in the ninth century, which contrasted the idelity and courage of nobles with the inidelity of serfs. He admits that some non-nobles are shown behaving bravely in battle, but claims those who do so are invariably killed, showing a concern to maintain the social order.148 Yet while the only nonnoble heroes in Ermoldus perish,149 it is not clear, in contrast, that Notker’s two bastards from a Burgundian brothel, who ight bravely against the Saxons, do actually die.150 Abbo shows a number of brave milites dying in the siege of Paris, such as the twelve heroes defending the Petit-Pont,151 but a few other milites whom he mentions at least implicitly survive.152 141 142

143 145 146 147

148 149 151

Codex Carolinus, ed. W. Gundlach, MGH Epp. 3 (Berlin, 1892), Epistola 3, pp. 109–45, at p. 480. Jonas of Orléans, Historia translationis sancti Hucberti, PL 106, cols. 389–94, at col. 389, c. 1. On this vita see DIR, pp. 27–8. Flori, L’Idéologie, pp. 41–50. 144 Scharf , Die Kämpfe, p. 193. PLS 30, pp. 118–19. See Halsall, Warfare and Society, p. 11. Willibald, Vita Bonifatii 8, pp. 49–50. Ibid., p. 52: ‘christiani, superstitiosorum tam uxoribus quam etiam iliis necnon servis et ancillis depraedatis, ad propria redierunt’. Barthélemy, ‘La Chevalerie’, pp. 167–8. In honorem, 1717–20 (Coslus and his ‘puer’). 150 Notker 2:4, p. 52. Abbo i:504–86. 152 Ibid. ii:250–3 (Gerbold), 562–5 (Stephen).

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Warfare There are occasional references to the lower orders as cowardly, but the contrast with the nobility is not absolute. For example, Abbo reports how the crowd (vulgus) supporting Ebolus lee when he is attacking a Viking camp. The ‘hero’ Ebolus and his followers (socii) remain, but then retreat ‘since they lacked milites’.153 A few passages also suggest noble opposition to peasant involvement in warfare. Regino records the massacre of an ‘ignoble crowd [vulgus]’ by the Vikings,154 and on one occasion peasant resistance to the Vikings was thwarted by the Frankish elite attacking them.155 Yet most Carolingian rhetoric stressed the warrior qualities of the whole people. For Ermoldus it is the Franci as a whole who are trained for war from their youth, peace-loving but invincible in war; the very name Francus comes from their ferocity.156 Similarly, Abbo celebrates the heroism of 600 Francigeni in a battle against the Danes in 886.157 Dominic Barthélemy wonders whether such references to ‘Franks’ indicate a class or a people, but even if a certain social status is implied, there is no indication that this was restricted solely to nobles.158 Particularly interesting evidence is provided by authors’ use of the terms viriliter (manfully) and nobiliter (nobly) in describing conduct in battles. There are repeated descriptions of armies, rulers and individual noblemen as behaving viriliter in conlicts ranging from the Saxon wars of the 770s to those against the Vikings in the mid and late ninth century.159 Pope Leo IV in 853, for example, wrote to the Frankish army: ‘Take care to act manfully against the enemies of the holy faith and the adversaries of all the provinces.’160 Such language, however, was not restricted to wars against pagan opponents: the Annales mettenses priores records the ‘manful’ actions of Carloman and Pippin III in Aquitaine and Alemannia, and men were also praised for acting viriliter in the civil wars of the 840s.161 Regino even recorded how the Conradines fought ‘manfully’ in their feud against the Babenberger.162 Non-Christians, in contrast, are almost never shown by Carolingian authors as ighting viriliter. Although Regino appears to suggest manful action by the Saxons at Detmold in 783 – ‘there the Saxons 153 155 158 159

160 161 162

Ibid. i:610–17. 154 Regino 882, p. 118. AB 859, p. 51. 156 In honorem, 368–79, 1406–11. 157 Abbo ii:316–29. Barthélemy, ‘La Chevalerie’, pp. 168–9. See for example ARF 776, p. 44 (Franks); ARF 783, p. 64 (Charlemagne and Franks); ARF Rev. 775, p. 43 (Franks); AB 848, pp. 35–6 (Charles the Bald); AB 873, p. 124 (Charles the Bald); AF 876, p. 88 (Louis the Younger); Regino 867, p. 92 (Robert the Strong); Regino 883, p. 120 (Louis III); Regino 888, p. 130 (Odo). Leo IV, Epistola 28, p. 601. AMP 742, 745, pp. 33, 36; Nithard 2:1, p. 14; AB 842, 844, pp. 27, 32. Regino 902, p. 149.

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Images of the warrior prepared manfully for battle in a ield. Then the king [Charlemagne] with the Franks rushed upon them’163 – this is probably simply due to a clumsy paraphrase of his sources, the Royal Frankish Annals, which state: ‘there the Saxons prepared for battle in a ield; the lord king Charles and the Franks in the usual manner manfully rushing upon them’.164 While there is repeated use of viriliter as military praise throughout the Carolingian period, in contrast the use of nobiliter to describe military leaders or armies is more restricted. The irst use I have found is by Einhard, praising Charlemagne for nobly extending the empire, while the Astronomer comments on Charlemagne’s nobility in leading an army across the Pyrenees, like Hannibal.165 Nithard is fond of the term nobilis and describes both Charles the Bald’s men and Louis the German behaving ‘nobly’ before and in combat.166 It is only in the last quarter of the ninth century, however, that nobiliter becomes commonly used to describe military activity.167 While Carolingian sources overall preferred to praise warriors as manly rather than noble, intriguingly those who failed as warriors are not called women or womanlike. Such derogatory comments are common in the classical literature known to Carolingian authors, such as when Turnus insults the Trojans in the Aeneid: ‘O truly Phrygian women, not Phrygian men’;168 it is also visible in some Anglo-Saxon texts.169 Instead, other taunts are used in Carolingian texts for such men. Walter in Waltharius comments that King Gunther ‘did the work of Mars in a lukewarm and enfeebled way’ and wants him served last with wine.170 Abbo describes the Danes who lee the siege of Paris being reproached by their womenfolk as feeble gluttons.171 The most frequent insult is that such a man is a ‘hare’: the Fulda annalist describes Charles the Bald as ‘as fearful as a hare’,172 and Alcuin calls himself a ‘leveret’ when trying to avoid a campaign.173 Indeed, to call a man a hare was speciically penalised by Salic law; the fact that the next 163

164

165 166 167

168

169

170 171

Ibid. 783, p. 54: ‘Ibi Saxones paraverunt pugnam in campo viriliter.Tunc rex cum Francis super eos irruit.’ ARF 783, p. 64: ‘Ibi Saxones praeparaverunt pugna in campo, qui viriliter domnus Carolus rex et Franci solito more super eos inruentes.’ VK 15, 3, pp. 17, 35; Astronomer 2, p. 288. Nithard 2:4, 4:4, pp. 16, 45. On Nithard and nobility, see also Chapter 4, p. 131. See for example AF 881, p. 96 (Louis III); AF(B) 896, p. 128 (Arnulf and his army); AF(B) 900, p. 135 (Count Liutpold and Bavarians); Regino 874, p. 107 (Vurfand). Virgil, Aeneid, ed. R. A. B. Mynors, in P.Vergili Maronis opera (Oxford, 1969), ix:617, p. 325: ‘o uere Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges’. Richard Abels, ‘“Cowardice” and duty in Anglo-Saxon England’, Journal of Medieval Military History 4 (2006), 29–49, at pp. 36–40. Waltharius, 1415: ‘et qui Martis opus tepide atque enerviter egit’. Abbo i:125–32. 172 AF 875, p. 85. 173 See above, p. 85.

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Warfare clause has a similar penalty for claiming that a man threw down his shield and ran away shows the military context for such insults.174 Ideologically, then, the predominant view was of all laymen as warriors. The military usefulness of poorer freemen in Frankish armies had probably always been limited, however; towards the end of the ninth century there are changes in the image of the warrior, which are a belated relection of this.The irst use of the image of the three orders was in late Carolingian sources, dividing laymen between bellatores and laboratores (ighters and workers).175 One of the earliest narrative references to non-combatant laymen appears at about the same time, in the Libellus miraculorum Sancti Bertini, describing a Viking attack in 891. After the attack has been repelled, a division of the spoil is made: only a third goes to the nobler and inferior men (nobiliores cum inferioribus), also called warriors (bellatores), who did the actual ighting. As well as a third to the churches, a third also goes to the ‘those who pray and the poor’ (oratores et paupers), whose prayers have assisted the victory. These poor men (as Jean Flori points out, the passage discusses these non-combatants in male rather than female terms) are also described as an inbelle vulgus (unwarlike crowd).176 There is also a more general change in the use of the term inermis (unarmed). When eighth- and ninth-century Frankish authors use the word, it most often refers to spiritual warfare; Alcuin, for example, tells the monks of Salzburg: ‘Arm yourself with the knowledge of truth, the sentences of gospel authority, so that you may be able to resist those contradicting the truth. For in what way can an unarmed man ight?’177 Paulinus, depreciating his own role as a spiritual warrior in a letter to Charlemagne in 791, says: ‘The commendations are not great, nor will a man be judged for the palm branch crown of the novice soldier, if the ruddy blood is from an unarmed rustic.’178 In contrast, in the tenthcentury Vita Geraldi, the meaning has become concrete: Gerald’s use of military power is justiied by his need to protect the ‘unarmed crowd [vulgus]’.179 The existence of such ‘unarmed’ social groups and their 174 175

176

177 178

179

PLS 30–5, p. 119; Halsall, Warfare and Society, p. 11. See Dominique Iogna-Prat, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism and Islam, 1000–1150, trans. Graham Robert Edwards (Ithaca, NY, 2002), pp. 14–15 and the literature cited there. Libellus miraculorum Sancti Bertini, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 15:1 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 509–16, at pp. 512–13, c. 7; Flori, L’Idéologie, p. 58. Alcuin, Epistola 168, pp. 276–7. Paulinus of Aquileia, Epistola 15, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), p. 519: ‘Non enim magni est praeconii, nec iudicabitur palmata tyronis de triumpho corona, si de inermi fuerit ruriculae sanguine rubicunda.’ Odo, Vita sancti Geraldi i:8, col. 647.

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Images of the warrior need for protection became one of the key ideas of the Peace of God movement.180 The limits of prowess As the example of Ebolus, retreating because of the small size of his force, shows, despite the emphasis on military activity, prowess, even for nobles, was not all;181 a willingness to ight was always expected. Annalists often condemned reckless behaviour,182 while approving a prudent reluctance to ight in particularly dangerous situations. Prudentius, for example, justiies Charles the Bald paying of the Danes in 845 because he realised that his army could not prevail against them, and later in the same annal condemns Charles for a rash attack on the Bretons.183 A particularly clear example of the pragmatic views possible on such matters is given by the Fulda annalist, in a speech he puts in the mouth of a Christianised Viking in 873. Faced with a besieged group of enemy Vikings, he advises the Frisians he is leading: O my good fellow-soldiers [commilitiones], it is enough for us to have fought thus far, for it is not owing to our strength but to God’s that we few have prevailed against so many enemies. You know also that we are absolutely exhausted and many of us are seriously wounded; those who lie here within are in desperation. If we begin to ight against them, we shall not defeat them without bloodshed; if they turn out to be stronger – for the outcome of battle is uncertain – then perhaps they will overcome us and depart in safety, still able to do us harm.184

The leader therefore advised allowing some of the besieged to return to their ships, with the rest kept as hostages, until they handed over all the money in their ships and swore never to return to the kingdom. This advice was followed and the Vikings are reported as returning home ‘with great shame and loss’.185 Similarly cautious attitudes are seen in poetry, such as Waltharius. The Franks, although ‘such a brave people’,186 submit without a ight to the overwhelming might of the Huns; the Frankish council unanimously agree that surrender is better than losing everything in a catastrophic 180

181 182

183

Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Protection of the church, defense of the law and reform: On the purposes and character of the Peace of God, 989–1038’, in Thomas Head and Richard Landes (eds.), The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000 (Ithaca, NY, 1992), pp. 259–279, at pp. 266–7. See above, p. 86. See for example ARF Rev. 782, pp. 71–3 (Süntel mountains); AF 849, pp. 38–9 (attack on Bohemians); Regino 867, pp. 92–3 (Robert the Strong); AB 871, p. 116 (Abbot Hugh of St Martin); AV 886, p. 61 (Henry, Duke of the Austrasians). AB 845, p. 33. 184 AF 873, p. 80. 185 Ibid., p. 81. 186 Waltharius, 58.

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Warfare defeat.187 At an individual level, unlike the knights of romance, almost insanely eager for combat,188 the warriors of Waltharius are careful calculators of the odds in battle. When Walter escapes from Attila’s court with some of the treasure, no Hun will pursue him, even when Attila ofers a reward. The Huns are not described as cowards, but none dares face Walter.189 Walter, meanwhile is equally circumspect. He does not attack Attila, but escapes secretly.When faced with ighting a mere twelve opponents, he irst tries to negotiate with them. Even after killing some, he still tries to stop the ight.190 Similarly, Hagan’s reluctance to ight, and his repeated insistence that Walter cannot be defeated,191 does not diminish him in Walter’s eyes, and neither, presumably, in those of the audience. Prowess in Waltharius is not solely about willingness to ight or even a lack of fear: it is about results. Gunther, unlike the Huns, is prepared to ight Walter, although unfairly, but is still shown as a coward.192 It is not merely that he is frightened (Walter and Hagan feel ‘the terror of death’ as well)193 but that his fear makes him ridiculous and incompetent. A similar focus on outcomes is seen in descriptions of rulers, and also magnates on campaign accepting or refusing peace terms from their enemies. Paul Kershaw claims that there was a general moral duty on Christian kings to ofer peace terms irst to opponents and not to refuse peace terms themselves.194 One of the main texts he uses to support this argument is Sedulius Scottus’ Liber de rectoribus christianis. In this text, Sedulius certainly goes further than most Carolingian moralists in explictly condemning the arrogant rejection of peace terms: There are some, however, who are so elated by the success of earthly felicity and swollen pride that they do not fear spurning the peace ofered by their enemies and undertaking unjust wars. What is worse, if perhaps entangled in two wars, with the fury of Spartans they do not refuse a third. Often, however, such men are destroyed by the rod of divine vengeance, since they do not want to receive the gift of peace ofered.195

If we look closely at Sedulius’ exemplary stories in this chapter, however, a more complex picture emerges. Sedulius’ irst example is from the Old Testament Book of Kings: King Amaziah of Judah, having defeated the Edomites, then attacks King Jehoash of Israel, despite Jehoash’s attempts 187 188

189 191 192 194

Waltharius, 20–6. See for example Richard W. Kaeuper, ‘Chivalry and the “civilizing process”’, in Richard W. Kaeuper (ed.), Violence in Medieval Society (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 21–35, at pp. 24–5. Waltharius, 408–18. 190 Ibid., 1262–3. See for example ibid., 519–29, 617–22, 852, 1102–6. Ibid., 1325–6, 1413–15. 193 Ibid., 1344–5. Kershaw, ‘Rex paciicus’, p. 91. 195 LRC 17, pp. 77–8.

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Images of the warrior to prevent the war. He sufers a itting defeat.196 It is noticeable that neither the biblical passage nor Sedulius sees anything problematic in Amaziah’s initial unprovoked and bloody attack on the Edomites. This story its with other evidence that ‘internal’ wars, between populations who shared a common ethnicity, could be problematic for Carolingian moralists.197 In particular, Sedulius, writing after Charles the Bald’s takeover of Lotharingia, may have wished to caution him about further conlicts with his own relatives. Charles was reluctant to heed any such warnings to leave his relatives alone. Six years later, Bishop Willibert of Cologne was unsuccessfully admonishing him: ‘that he would not do such cruel and barbarous things towards a nephew [Louis the Younger] who sought peace.’198 Sedulius’ second warning tale, in contrast, concerns a war between two unrelated groups. When the Roman emperor Julian was besieging Ctesiphon, he refused the ofer of the Persian king to surrender part of the country to him. As a result, he was mysteriously killed when preparing to lead his army into battle. The moral Sedulius draws is: ‘while, indeed, it is a good thing to conquer, it is, on the other hand, an invidious thing to conquer excessively with a foolhardy belief in magic arts and by anticipating victory with a false hope’.199 Despite the moral sentiments about peace in this chapter, therefore, it is inally ‘excessive conquest’, the military overconidence that leads to defeat, that is the real problem for Sedulius. Regino uses very similar language when the Breton duke Vidicheil is killed during a rash pursuit of defeated Vikings: ‘unware that to conquer is good, but to conquer excessively is not’.200 This rare use of supervincare suggests either that such a phrase had become proverbial, or that Regino knew Sedulius’ source here, Epiphanius’ Historia tripartita.201 Another key passage for Paul Kershaw’s argument about peacefulness is from the Fulda annals for 849, in which Frankish magnates attack Bohemian rebels who have already negotiated submission and the giving of hostages. The text states: ‘they renewed the attack on an enemy seeking peace and immediately learnt what the strength and daring of the quarrelsome can do without the fear of God’.202 196 199

200 201

202

Ibid., p. 78; 2 Kings 14:7–14. 197 See above, p. 78. 198 AF 876, p. 88. LRC 17, pp. 78–9: ‘quia vincere quidem bonum est, supervincere nimis invidiosum, credens utique magicis artibus et falsa spe victoriam praesumens’. Regino 890, p. 135. Cassiodori-Epiphanii historia ecclesiastica tripartita: Historiae ecclesiasticae ex Socrate, Sozomeno et Theodorito, ed. Walter Jacob, CSEL 71 (Vienna, 1952), 6–46, p. 370. On the Historia tripartita see McKitterick, History and Memory, pp. 233–4. AF 849, p. 38.

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Warfare Kershaw comments that this is:‘a rare recorded occasion of the requirement of Christian kingship to pursue peace not being observed …This lapse was presented as a moral crime … the individual responsible for this entry shared other annalists’ attitudes to rulership, victory, and the correct behaviour for a Christian power at war.’203 Again though, it is hard to know whether the annalist is really making a moral argument, or a pragmatic one clothed in moral terms. There are interesting parallels, for example, with the situation recorded in the 873 annal, where the purely military reasons for letting a defeated group of enemies go free are made clear.204 Overall, it is diicult to argue for any general duty of peacefulness by Carolingian leaders towards external foes: several annalists later in the ninth century complain about kings who make peace with defeated Viking armies rather than destroying a weakened enemy.205 Peacefulness, to Carolingian moralists, is often mainly a question of knowing when to rest on one’s laurels. Heroic death Another revealing aspect of the moral norms surrounding warfare is how Carolingian texts treat death in battle. Many scholars have discussed heroic death in Anglo-Saxon literature, but there has been little comparative study of Carolingian images.206 Old English texts often celebrate the heroic death of warriors in battle. Indeed, Clare Lees, writing on masculinity in Beowulf, can say: ‘Finally he [Beowulf] is only one more dead but praiseworthy man – warrior and king: the only good hero, after all, is a dead one.’207 Frankish texts instead overwhelmingly portrayed defeats negatively, with deaths seen only as a loss.208 The only known Carolingian poem on the defeat at Roncesvalles in 778, for example, is Eggihard’s epitaph, which says nothing of any heroism.209 There has been much debate on 203 205 206

207

208

209

204 Kershaw, ‘Rex paciicus’, p. 116 See above, p. 91. See for example AV 874, p. 40; Regino 873, pp. 106–7; AF(M) 882, pp. 98–9. See for example Joseph Harris, ‘Love and death in the Männerbund: An essay with special reference to the Bjarkamál and The Battle of Maldon’, in Helen Damico and John Leyerle (eds.), Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., Studies in Medieval Culture 32 (Kalamazoo, 1993), pp. 77–114; Steven Fanning, ‘Tacitus, Beowulf and the comitatus’, Haskins Society Journal 9 (1997), 17–38 and below, pp. 98–9. Clare A. Lees,‘Men and Beowulf’, in Lees, Medieval Masculinities, Medieval Cultures 7 (Minneapolis, 1994), pp. 129–48, at p. 146. See for example ARF Rev. 778, p. 51 (Roncesvalles); ARF 824, p. 166 (Pyrenees); AB 834, p. 9 (expedition against Lothar); AB 844, pp. 30–1 (Angoulême); AB 845, p. 33 (Ballon); AB 876, pp. 132–3 (Andernach); AF 849, p. 39 (Bohemian campaign). MGH Poet. i, pp. 109–10.

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Images of the warrior the Astronomer’s statement about those who died in this battle: ‘since their names are widely known [vulgata sunt], I have refrained from giving them’.210 Thomas Scharf sees in this a deliberate refusal to link the names of the dead with a painful defeat.211 If the Astronomer’s sentence does refer to other accounts of the battle, this still does not demonstrate that the deaths were remembered at the time as heroic, rather than merely tragic. While it is possible that the Chanson de Roland has Carolingian roots, the story has been so much altered that the nature of any eighth-century original cannot be deduced reliably. As T. D. Hemming comments: ‘The raw material is singularly unpromising: what is involved is nothing less than the transformation of shame into glory.’212 The need to reinvent the enemies of Roncesvalles as Saracens, a concept foreign to the Astronomer in the early 840s, makes it unlikely that any proto-version of the Chanson de Roland existed in court circles before the end of the ninth century or later. Nor do other fatalities in battle receive more heroic gloss in poetry or annals. The deaths in the Avar campaign of 799 of Gerald, the governor of Bavaria, and Eric of Friuli were clearly a major blow to the Franks.213 Yet the epitaph of neither man stresses the heroism of his death.214 The epitaphs of Nithard and Charlemagne’s son Hugh, both killed in battle in 844, are similarly devoid of heroic descriptions of their fall.215 Walafrid Strabo calls Gerald a martyr in the Visio Wettini, but describes his death in one line: ‘Gerald died in this war, as the people contended.’216 Angelbert’s poem on Fontenoy is one of the few Carolingian poems to show a battle itself as a tragedy.The only heroic igure described, however, is Lothar, Angelbert’s king, and he is shown as victorious: ‘From the height of the hill I looked down into the valley’s depths where the brave king Lothar was vanquishing his enemies who led to the other side of the brook.’217 Lothar’s actual defeat, which Angelbert blames on the cow-

210 212

213 214 215 216 217

Astronomer 2, p. 288. 211 Scharf, Die Kämpfe, pp. 207–8. T. D. Hemming, ‘Introduction’, in Frederick Whitehead and T. D. Hemming (eds.), La Chanson de Roland (Bristol, 1993), pp. ix–xxxv, at p. xvii. See for example Alcuin, Epistola 198, pp. 327–9; VK 13, p. 16. MGH Poet. i, p. 114 (Gerald); Paulinus, Carmen 2, pp. 131–3 (Eric). MGH Poet. ii, pp. 139–40; MGH Poet. iii, pp. 310–11. Visio Wettini, 823. Angelbert, Versus de bella, stanza 9, in PCR, p. 262 (Godman’s translation): Ima vallis retrospexi in collis cacumine, Ubi suos inimicos rex fortis Hlotharius Debellabat fugientes usque foras rivulum.

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Warfare ardice and betrayal of his duces, is not described by the poet: it is only the dead bodies of his opponents that we speciically ‘see’.218 There is a similar attitude in Waltharius, which has no historical constraints on its portrayal of death. Gunther’s men could easily be portrayed as heroically, if misguidedly, sacriicing themselves from loyalty to him; instead they are shown as arrogant, greedy warriors. The only tragic death is Batafrid’s, but his tragedy is precisely his bad choice in seeking a hopeless battle, against his uncle’s advice. Hagan expresses his despair about his nephew, who:‘blindly rushes on to taste abominable death / And for cheap praise desires to descend among the shades’.219 Hagan eventually decides to ight Walter himself, but is unenthusiastic, since he knows Walter’s prowess.220 Waltharius’ main celebration is of the successful hero, rather than heroic defeat. At the end of the poem, Walter returns triumphantly to Aquitaine; although he has lost his right hand, Hagan’s banter shows him still able to hunt, ight and marry, i.e. to function in a full secular role.221 Ermoldus Nigellus, in his portrayal of the Breton king Murman, speciically ridicules the ideal of dying in battle for one’s country. Before the campaign of 818, Louis’ envoy to Murman, Abbot Wichar, urges him to submit, for the sake of his ‘country’ and ‘people’.222 If he refuses peace, the Franks will invade his lands: ‘They will ill up your lands with troops and lead you and your men captive into their kingdoms; or wretched you will die and you will lie alone, on the sand which drinks up blood and the victor, rejoicing will have your arms.’223 Wichar thus sees surrendering to an overwhelming force as ‘patriotic’, using Virgilian parallels to argue against heroic resistance by the Bretons: Murman is Turnus to Louis the Pious’ Aeneas.224 Murman, however, resists; when the Franks invade, he laments his troops’ performance: 218

Ibid., stanza 10, p. 264: Karoli de parte vero Hludovici pariter Albescunt campi vestimentis mortuorum lineis [From Charles’ side and Louis’ equally The ields become white with the linen garments of the dead.]

219

220

221 223

Waltharius, 870–1: ‘En caecus mortem properat gustare nefandam / et vili pro laude cupit descendere ad umbras.’ Ibid., 1100–1: ‘Quis tam desipiens quandoque fuisse probatur, / qui saltu baratrum sponte attemptarit apertum?’ [‘Who has ever proved to be so foolish / that he would willingly attempt a jump into an open abyss?’]. Ibid., 1425–34. 222 In honorem, 1386–9. Ibid., 1486–9: Et tua densatim complebunt milite rura Teque tuos captos in sua regna ferent; Aut moriere miser bibulaque jacebis harena Solus, et arma tua victor habebit ovans.

224

Ibid., 1394–9.

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Images of the warrior O virtue of the country, O former noble fame of the ancestors, Now remembered in vain, is shamed, alas. Behold! See the wretched citizens rely on the woods, Nor do they dare to inlict war on the enemy camp.225

He then makes a futile attempt to ind and attack Louis the Pious himself, ‘for the glory of his country and the salvation of the land’.226 Instead, he is killed by a non-noble Frank, Coslus.227 Coslus himself is in turn killed as he decapitates Murman; Ermoldus’ comment ‘Victor and careless [incautus], alas O Coslus, you die’, implies that his death is not seen as heroic, even if his previous deed is.228 The Breton king is clearly a derisory igure in the poem, even though he could be seen as redeeming the ‘virtue of the country’ by his death in battle. Murman’s statements, however, suggest diferences between Breton and Frankish ideas about heroic death: intriguingly, Regino, in a passage probably drawing on Breton sources, describes similar attitudes to Murman’s.229 Vurfand, a Breton dux contesting the succession to Salomon, prefers to ight his rival Pasquitan’s far stronger army, even though his own troops are telling him to escape. He declares that he will never run away: ‘It is better to die nobly than to save one’s life shamefully.’230 Regino also describes how Vurfand had previously deied a Viking army with only his own 200 men and how he leads his army to victory even on his deathbed.231 In contrast, Regino elsewhere shows several other military events that he, or his non-Breton sources, choose not to present as heroic deiance or glorious death. For example, his text shows the death of Robert the Strong as resulting from reckless behaviour in ighting without helmet and armour.232 Regino gives the most detailed description of the death of Henry, dux of the eastern Franks at the siege of Paris, and his is the only account that includes any celebration of Henry’s behaviour.233 Yet although Regino refers to Henry’s ‘greatness of spirit’ and calls theVikings 225

Ibid., 1650–3: O patriae virtus, o quondam fama parentum Nobilis, heu frustra jam memorata pudet. Cernitis en miseros silvis conidere cives, Nec campis audent hostibus arma dare.

226 227 229

230

231 233

Ibid., 1663: ‘pro patriae laude proque salute soli’. Ibid., 1689. 228 Ibid., 1717. Karl Ferdinand Werner, ‘Zur Arbeitsweise des Regino vom Prüm’, Die Welt als Geschichte 19 (1959), 96–116, at p. 109; MacLean, ‘Introduction’, pp. 34–6. Regino 874, p. 107: ‘Melius nobiliter mori, quam ignominia vitam servare.’ He is, in fact, victorious. Ibid., pp. 108–10. 232 Ibid. 867, pp. 92–3. Compare the accounts in AF(M) 886, p. 105; AF(B) 886, p. 114; AV 886, p. 61; Abbo ii:217–18.

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Warfare ‘brigands’ (latrunculi) there is little other heroic colour in his account of how Henry, while out scouting the Viking camp, is provoked into an attack, falls into one of the protective ditches the Vikings have dug, and is promptly killed and despoiled.234 Even more striking is Regino’s treatment of an incident in 871 when the Beneventan dux Adalgisus attacked the palace in Benevento where Louis II was staying. Louis is shown immediately arming himself and going with his few men to guard the threshold: a classic theme from epic. However, when Adalgisus gave orders to set ire to the palace, Louis ‘urgently requested peace’ and was allowed to leave, after swearing an oath to take no revenge on Adalgisus.235 Why are such diferences visible in Frankish, Breton and Anglo-Saxon literary traditions, especially when Carolingian texts also draw heavily on classical works that celebrate heroic death? It seems unlikely that this is simply a relection of diferent military norms. Any society where warfare is common must carry out what John Benton describes as ‘the enculturation of a warrior class’.236 This includes developing warriors ‘who will risk, indeed sacriice, their lives if necessary’; literary and oral texts such as epic poetry play an important part in such training.237 Some Frankish warriors clearly did practise self-sacriice in battle, as two accounts of the battle of the Süntel Mountains in 782 show. The original version of the Royal Frankish Annals claims the Franks were successful and describes them as ighting ‘bravely’ (fortiter).238 The revised version shows a Frankish defeat, due to a premature and badly planned attack. It comments: ‘Since the approach had gone badly, the battle was also fought badly.’239 While some men are described as escaping, others chose to die with their lords.The annalist makes no attempt to glorify the loyalty of those who remained; they appear almost as an embarrassment. Varying depictions of death in battle are more likely, instead, to relect the diferent ideological backgrounds of literary traditions. Recent research by Anglo-Saxonists has stressed the constructed nature of heroic death in texts such as The Battle of Maldon, rather than seeing such texts as simply relecting pre-existing moral norms.240 In one of the most far234 236

237

238 240

Regino 887, p. 126. See also below, p. 108. 235 Ibid. 871, p. 104. John F. Benton, ‘“Nostre Franceis n’unt talent de fuïr”: The Song of Roland and the enculturation of a warrior class’, Olifant 6 (1978–9), 237–58. Ibid., pp. 245–6. Some army regiments continue to use mottoes such as ‘Death or Glory’ and ‘Death before Dishonour’. 239 ARF 782, p. 60. ARF Rev. 782, p. 63. Rosemary Woolf, ‘The ideal of men dying with their lord in the Germania and in The Battle of Maldon’, Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), 63–81; Roberta Frank, ‘The ideal of men dying with their lord in The Battle of Maldon: Anachronism or nouvelle vague’, in Ian Wood and Niels Lund (eds.), People and Places in Northern Europe, 500–1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 95–106.

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Images of the warrior reaching discussions, John Hill argues for the deliberate development of an ‘Alfredian’ ideology of kingship, lordship and retainership from the late ninth century. To him, the Maldon poem ‘is the completion of a stunning, new ideology of retainership and loyalty in the face of overwhelmingly triumphant lordship’.241 Such a complete identiication of men with their lords may have been a vital tool in discouraging defection in the diicult circumstances of the Viking invasions.242 In Francia, however, diferent military circumstances produced other ideological emphases. There is little sign of a Merovingian literary tradition of celebrating heroic death.243 The ideology of kingship developed in Francia from the late eighth century stressed the shared triumphs of the Carolingians and the Franks, and the importance of idelity to the king as monarch.244 This ideology was developed largely during a period of military success and expansion; as Michael McCormick comments: ‘Victory was an essential characteristic of Carolingian kingship as it was portrayed in art, literature and ceremony.’245 This court-centred ideology also had a far more ambivalent relationship to lordship than Anglo-Saxon propaganda did.246 The ideological basis of depictions of heroic death is made clear by the infrequent occasions when Frankish authors do celebrate such moral victories. Nithard, for example, claims that at a low point in Charles the Bald’s fortunes, his supporters ‘chose to die nobly rather than betray and abandon their king’.247 Nithard, in the midst of his bleak view of the contemporary behaviour of laymen,248 is here constructing a moral ideal available even to a relatively powerless and unsuccessful group of nobles. It is also noticeable that more frequent references to heroic death start to appear in Carolingian sources in the 860s, in the context of conlicts with the Vikings. The motif is now found in epic poetry and annals, which had previously avoided such images. Unlike Regino, or Hincmar in the Annales Bertiniani, the Fulda annalist chose to celebrate the death of Robert the Strong as glorious, comparing him to Judas Maccabaeus.249 Similar praise of dead warriors is sometimes seen in other annalists from 241

242

243

244 245 247 248

John M. Hill, The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic: Reconstructing Lordship in Early English Literature (Gainesville, 2000), p. 130. I discuss contrasting Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon ideologies of lordship in more detail in Rachel Stone, ‘In search of the Carolingian dear lord’, in David Ganz and Paul Fouracre (eds.), Frankland: Essays Presented to Janet. L. Nelson (Manchester, 2008), pp. 152–66. Jean-Pierre Bodmer, Der Krieger der Merowingerzeit und seine Welt: Eine Studie über Kriegertum als Form der menschlichen Existenz im Frühmittelalter, Geist und Werk der Zeiten 2 (Zurich, 1957), pp. 132–6; Gofart, ‘Conspicuous by absence’, pp. 371–3. McKitterick, ‘Constructing’, pp. 116–28. McCormick, Eternal Victory, p. 369. 246 See Chapter 6, pp. 197–9. Nithard 2:4, p. 16: ‘elegerunt potius nobiliter mori quam regem proditum derelinquere’. Airlie, ‘World’, pp. 68–71. 249 AF 867, p. 66.

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Warfare the 860s onwards,250 while Abbo in the 890s records the heroic deaths of nobles, as well as those of lower rank.251 The Vikings were not the only opponents of the Franks in the period, but there is only one reference to heroic deaths in a battle against another enemy. The Fulda annalist describes the defeat by the Moravian Slavs of an army led by Bishop Arn of Würzburg and Abbot Sigihart of Fulda ‘although they fought bravely’;252 perhaps local pride is relected here. Otherwise, the depiction of death in battle as heroic in Frankish sources looks like a belated change in a warrior ideology previously based mainly on eighth-century models of victorious heroes. Only with the midninth-century crises of the civil war and the Viking attacks was there a need to develop an ideology in which actual defeats could be spun as moral victories. Norms of war fare Carolingian rulers were concerned to regulate both warfare and wider military activities. From the Capitulary of Herstal in 779 onwards, several rulers imposed restrictions or outright prohibitions on armed followings, (conturbia, trustes, collecta). Régine Le Jan argues that it was the ‘horizontal’ component of trustes, as band of sworn comrades, that the Carolingians objected to, and this may it with other evidence for bans on groups bound by oaths.253 However, lay and clerical magnates are frequently shown with their own armed followings after 779, suggesting that rulers probably wished not to prohibit the elite having such bands, but only prevent their misuse.254 Capitularies also include frequent orders on the mobilisation of troops,255 and express much concern about military discipline on the march and in camp.256 This concern had a practical element, but there were also spiritual matters at stake: an army needed to please God to ensure victory.257 Far rarer, however, is concern about the behaviour of Frankish troops in enemy territory or during battles. Janet Nelson argues

250

251 252 254 256

257

See for example Annales Engolismenses, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz, MGH SS 16 (Hanover, 1859) pp. 485–6 (863, p. 486 (Turpio)); AV 888, p. 66 (Teutbert). See for example Abbo i, 442–51 (Robert Faretratus); ii, 456–66 (Teutbert). AF 872, p. 76. 253 Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 129–30. Reuter, ‘Plunder’, pp. 82–3. 255 Halsall, Warfare and Society, pp. 93–6. Janet L. Nelson, ‘The search for peace in a time of war: The Carolingian Brüderkrieg, 840–843’, in Johannes Fried (ed.), Träger und Instrumentarien des Friedens im Hohen und Späten Mittelalter, Vorträge und Forschungen vom Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte 43 (Sigmaringen, 1996), pp. 87–114, at p. 89. Halsall, Warfare and Society, pp. 152–3.

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Norms of warfare for a ‘ritualization’ of ninth-century warfare, but this was largely a matter of behaviour before and after the battle, not during it.258 The texts that might be expected to give most instruction on such issues, the two known ‘military sermons’, focus largely on the need for confession, avoiding sin and performing good works.259 They make only a few speciic ethical demands: that soldiers avoid ‘the evil of dissension and discord’;260 that they do not commit robbery (rapinae) on the journey, but reverently take only necessities; and that they ight ‘not for earthly wealth [lucrum terrenum] nor for worldly pomp, but for defence of the Christian name and the churches of God’.261 These read mainly like a moralised version of some of the capitularies’ concerns. There is little evidence of any consistently accepted conventions on how warfare should be conducted. Attacks on churches were sometimes prohibited or condemned: Ermoldus shows Louis the Pious warning his troops to spare Breton churches and the opponents of both Lothar I and Charles the Bald accused their armies of plundering or burning churches.262 Yet Abbo shows Franks massacring leeing Danes who have taken refuge in Paris churches and Regino describes Robert the Strong’s attack on Vikings who had taken refuge in a church at Brissarthe in 867.263 Louis II in his capitulary before the Beneventan campaign in early 866 announced: ‘since the Lent harmony is approaching … we decree that whoever should burn a church of God, or should commit adultery or arson will sufer peril of his life’.264 Louis’ order suggests that when in 833 Frankish bishops accused Louis the Pious of wrongfully undertaking a campaign in Lent 830, they were acting opportunistically.265 Their additional claim that this campaign was ‘without any public utility’ may have been a convenient way of avoiding parallels with the greatest military success with which Louis was associated, the siege of Barcelona; this had similarly lasted through Lent and ended on Easter Saturday.266 Prudentius’ account of the civil war in 841 and 842 points out Lothar’s campaigning in Lent, while carefully 258 259

260 262 263 264 265

266

Nelson, ‘Violence’. Albert Michael Koeniger, Die Militärseelsorge der Karolingerzeit: Ihr Recht und ihre Praxis, Veröfentlichungen aus der Kirchenhistorischen Seminar München, 4th series 7 (Munich, 1918), pp. 68–74 gives the texts; David S. Bachrach, Religion and the Conduct of War, c. 300–1215 (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 49–55 discusses the dating and audience. Koeniger, Militärseelsorge, p. 71. 261 Ibid., p. 73. In honorem, 1592–3; Nithard 1:5, p. 7; AB 841, 845, pp. 26–7, 44. Abbo ii, 322–5; Regino 867, p. 92. ‘Constitutio de expeditione Beneventana’ 866, MGH Cap. ii:218, p. 96, c. 8. ‘Episcoporum de poenitentia, quam Hludowicus imperator professus est, relatio Compendiensis’ 833, MGH Cap. ii:197, p. 54, c. 3. On this text, see de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 235–41. In honorem, 564–5.

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Warfare avoiding mentioning that Charles the Bald and Louis the German were doing so too.267 A wide range of acceptable tactics is visible, both at the individual and army level. Indeed, Alcuin, writing to Charlemagne in 798, stated: ‘Three things are to be considered with an enemy: strength, deceit, peace [virtus, dolus, pax]. First, whether the adversary can be defeated by public strength. If not, the matter should be referred to tricks and ingenuity of deceit. And if this is not of use either, then the hatred of enemies should be destroyed by counsel of peace.’268 Frankish use of ambushes and the taking of women and children as hostages are reported approvingly.269 There is also no sign of the later medieval prejudice against elite warriors using missile weapons;270 several Carolingian sources show Frankish military leaders using archery or ballistas in battle.271 Two Carolingian kings are shown as encouraging the assassination of foreign leaders: the continuator of Fredegar alleges that the killing of the Aquitanian dux Waifar was by Pippin III’s counsel, while Regino gives a detailed account of how Charles the Fat planned the killing of the Viking leader Godafrid ‘by skill rather than force’.272 In neither case do the authors express any disapproval about this kind of homicide. Yet all such tactics were acceptable only for the authors’ heroes, while similar behaviour by opponents was condemned. Ermoldus Nigellus describes the Breton technique of guerrilla ighting as ‘perverse wars’ (bella inproba).273 The revised version of the Royal Frankish Annals claims that the Franks were superior to the Basques ‘both in arms and in spirits’, and blames the defeat at Roncesvalles on the terrain and the ‘unequal [inpars] kind of ight’.274 In Waltharius,Werinhard similarly engages Walter in ‘scarcely equal combat’ by shooting at him from a distance.275 Such behaviour seems to have been seen as unmanly more than ignoble.Walter is described as ‘that virile one’ and ‘hero’ in his battle with Werinhard,276 and when a later opponent, Hadaward, dismounts to oppose him, ‘Walter praised the man [vir] who ofered an equal form of ighting’.277 The logical conclusion of such a relativistic view of tactics in battle is seen in the Royal Frankish Annals’ account of the campaign against Tassilo in 787. Pope Hadrian is described as absolving the Franks in advance: all the possible ‘evils’ of the campaign were Tassilo’s own fault for disobedience.278 267 269 270 271 272 273 275

AB 841, 842, pp. 24, 27. 268 Alcuin, Epistola 149, p. 242. See for example AF(B) 882, pp. 107–8; Astronomer 18, p. 334. A. T. Hatto, ‘Archery and chivalry: A noble prejudice’, Modern Language Review 35 (1940), 40–55. In honorem, 397–403; Abbo i, 108–10. Fredegar 52, p. 120; Regino 885, p. 123. In honorem, 1614. 274 ARF Rev. 778, p. 51. Waltharius, 731. 276 Ibid., 732, 750. 277 Ibid., 788–9. 278 See above, p. 76.

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Norms of warfare On this occasion, after Frankish armies had entered Bavaria, battle was avoided by Tassilo submitting and there are no speciic mentions of any damage inlicted. It is hard to know how literally to take the frequent reports of the Franks ‘devastating’ their enemies’ territory in the Royal Frankish Annals and elsewhere;Thomas Scharf has shown the important symbolic meaning of vastatio as implying claims to and control of land.279 However, Regino’s account of Louis II’s treatment of the rebellious city of Capua in 871 ‘with all the rapacity of an enemy’ and including the destruction of vines, olives and fruit trees, sounds more than purely symbolic.280 A particularly chilling account also appears in the Fulda annals. The annal for 850 gives a long and emotional description of the suferings of the people of Germany during a serious famine.The annal for 851 records how Louis the German responded to Sorb raids:‘He tamed them, after they had lost their harvests and the hope of food, rather through hunger than through ighting.’281 Plundering A few early Christian authors worried about armies plundering. Maximus of Turin, for example, stated in a sermon: ‘It is not a crime to serve as a soldier [militare], but it a sin to serve as a soldier for booty [praeda].’ Maximus’ comments date from the end of the fourth century and a thought world still dominated by the salaried Roman soldier.282 Early medieval moralists, however, drew on Old Testament precedents justifying plundering after battle.283 Hincmar, for example, describing the aftermath of the battle of Andernach in 876, cites Isaiah 33:1 on how plunderers are plundered themselves.284 Many Carolingian mentions of such actions are positive: as Timothy Reuter comments, for the eighth-century Franks ‘victory and plunder were more or less coterminous’.285 The enslavement of those captured in war, particularly non-combatants, was also 279 280 282

283

284 285

Scharf, Die Kämpfe, pp. 138–44. Regino 871, p. 103. 281 AF 851, p. 41. Maximus of Turin, Sermonum collectio antiqua, nonnullis sermonibus extravagantibus adiectis, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher, CCSL 23 (Turnhout, 1962), Sermo 26, p. 101. On the dating of Maximus’ sermons, see pp. xxix–xxxv. André Crépin, ‘Les Dépouilles des tués sur le champ de bataille dans l’histoire, les arts et la pensée du haut Moyen Age’, in Philippe Contamine and Olivier Guyotjeannin (eds.), La Guerre, la violence et les gens au Moyen Age. I: Guerre et violence. Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scientiiques 119e, Amiens, octobre 1994 (Paris, 1996), pp. 15–24, at pp. 17–18. AB 876, p. 133. Reuter, ‘Plunder’, p. 76. Bernard S. Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 46–50 plays down the importance of plunder as motivating rulers to war, but admits its signiicance for soldiers (pp. 138–40).

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Warfare routine.286 Willibald’s account of the aftermath of Boniface’s martyrdom regards such behaviour as entirely admirable,287 and Smaragdus is the only moralist calling for the avoidance of such behaviour.288 Court poetry repeatedly celebrates the material rewards of warfare: both ‘Hibernicus Exul’ and Ermoldus Nigellus have loving descriptions of captured treasures brought to court, although they say less about human captives.289 Einhard’s justiication of plundering is particularly explicit: he reports on the Avar wars: ‘so much precious booty was captured in their battles, that it might be rightly believed, that they had justly snatched from the Huns what the Huns had unjustly snatched from other nations’.290 As Karl Leyser comments: ‘it was the sheer size of the booty that justiied it and the war’.291 It is against this background that the ethics of treasure in Waltharius should be considered. Scholars have often stressed the poem’s emphasis on the dangers of greed.292 Dennis Kratz argued that Walter must therefore be seen as an anti-hero, condemned by the writer for his desire for treasure, such as when he despoils his victims.293 Einhard’s attitude, though, suggests that a noble audience would probably have applauded Walter’s behaviour. What is condemned in the poem is not desire for treasure, but excessive greed.294 Hagan, for example, laments: O whirlpool of the world, voracious lust of having, Abyss of avarice, the root of every evil! O dreadful one, if you would gulp down only gold And other riches, letting men escape unharmed!295

Similarly, the poet’s ironic comment after Walter, Hagan and Gunther are all seriously wounded – ‘thus, thus they shared the Avar armrings!’ – cannot be taken as a simple condemnation of all desire for 286

287 289 290

291 292

293 294 295

See Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, AD 300–900 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 744–52. See above, p. 87. 288 See Chapter 6, p. 179. Hibernicus Exul, Hos Karoli 7, p. 174; In honorem, 572–5. VK 13, p. 16: ‘tot spolia pretiosa in proeliis sublata, ut merito credi possit hoc Francos Hunis iuste eripuisse, quod Huni prius aliis gentibus iniuste eripuerunt’. Leyser, ‘Warfare in the western European Middle Ages’, p. 191. Max Wehrli, ‘“Waltharius”: Gattungsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 2 (1965), 63–73, at pp. 69–70; Kratz, Mocking Epic, p. 37. Dennis M. Kratz, ‘Introduction’, in Waltharius, pp. xx–xxi. See Chapter 7, p. 218. Waltharius, 857–60 (Kratz’s translation): O vortex mundi, fames insatiatus habendi, gurges avaritiae, cunctorum ibra malorum! O utinam solum gluttires dira metallum divitiasque alias, homines impune remittens!

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Norms of warfare wealth, as Kratz imagines.296 Walter has, after all, already ofered to share the treasure, but been rebufed with demands for it all.297 The fact that Walter returns to success at home, implicitly taking the treasure with him (it is not mentioned after the inal battle), suggests that his possession of it is not seen as an ofence that needs to be redeemed by giving it away. Only occasionally do Carolingian authors worry about such plundering in battle. The demand in one military sermon that soldiers ight for the defence of the church, not earthly wealth, presumably did not rule out actually taking it as a by-product.298 Three out of four lay mirrors (those by Alcuin, Jonas and Dhuoda) have nothing to say about plundering, positive or negative. The situation became more complicated when wars were being conducted within the Frankish kingdom. Yet several authors still show Franks legitimately plundering other Franks, from the Annales mettenses priores’ account of Pippin II sharing the spoils after the battle of Tertry in 687 through to the ninth-century battles of Fontenoy and Andernach.299 Condemnations by annalists of plundering by armies normally related either to actions by their chosen ruler’s opponents, or to campaigns by their own ‘side’ that were already seen as wrongful. Prudentius of Troyes complained about Lothar’s plundering in 841, but also Charles the Bald’s campaign against Louis the German in 854, perhaps relecting Prudentius’ own sympathies with the Aquitanian faction supporting Louis.300 Hincmar’s occasional negative comments about plundering by Charles the Bald are mostly during his periods of estrangement from the king in 865–6 and 876.301 The Carolingian moralist most hostile towards plundering is Paulinus, who, unlike the other mirror writers, also shows an unusual concern about the dangers of wealth in general.302 In the Liber exhortationis he compares the rejoicing of the miles terrenus at receiving treasure with the joy of thieves and adulterers: The earthly soldier rejoices that he has acquired the honours of this world that will perish, beautiful clothes and beautiful arm-rings [armillae] put around the forearm, a crown placed on the head: and such gladness is not eternal but

296 297 299 300

301 302

Waltharius, 1404: ‘sic sic armillas partiti sunt Avarenses’; Kratz, Mocking Epic, pp. 48–59. Waltharius, 660–7. 298 See above, p. 101. AMP 690, p. 9; Nithard 3:1, p. 28; AB 876, p. 133; AF 876, pp. 88–9. AB 841, 854, pp. 24–5, 44. On Prudentius’ sympathies, see Janet L. Nelson, ‘Introduction’, in The Annals of St-Bertin (Manchester, 1991), pp. 1–19, at p. 9. AB 866, 868, 876, pp. 85, 90–1, 133; Nelson, ‘Annals’, pp. 37–8. See Chapter 7, p. 219.

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Warfare perishable … to rejoice about these things and these kinds of things is greatly an evil and leads to the death of sin.303

Yet Paulinus’ worries here may be primarily a relection of the immediate circumstances of his writing. As discussed above, the text was probably written shortly after the Carolingian plundering of the Avars and addressed to Eric of Friuli, who had led this campaign.304 Paulinus himself was given some of the spoils: a letter of Alcuin’s mentions Queen Liutgard sending him two arm-rings, normally assumed to be from the Avar treasure.305 His concerns may simply relect alarm at the moral efect of such a sudden large inlux of wealth: Einhard, after all, could still remember more than twenty years later that before the campaign the Franks ‘had seemed almost paupers’ in contrast.306 There may also, however, be social overtones in Paulinus’ criticism of the miles, especially given the references to a crown and to arm-rings, which could be worn as ‘badges of rank’ during campaigns.307 Was he worried about who became wealthy from the Avar treasure? Did its vast size mean that even comparatively lowly warriors might strike it rich in the distribution that Charlemagne made ‘among his magnates, ecclesiastical as well as lay, and his other ideles’?308 Chivalry A number of analyses of Carolingian attitudes towards warfare have discussed the possible presence of the ideas of chivalry and knighthood.Very diferent conclusions have been drawn, depending on which aspects are seen as key. Scholars focusing on the development of an ideology of warriors as an ordo, and a change in the meaning of the term miles, have seen the Carolingian period as, at most, part of the ‘prehistory of chivalry’.309 Authors who have stressed the militarised nature of the Carolingian nobility and the development of military rituals, especially around weapon-giving, have often been more willing to see the ninth century as marking the beginning of knighthood.310

303 305 307 309

310

LE 11, cols. 206–7. 304 See Chapter 2, pp. 36–8. Alcuin, Epistola 96, p. 140, from 796. 306 VK 13, p. 16. Leyser, ‘Early medieval warfare’, p. 93. 308 ARF 796, p. 98. Georges Duby, ‘The origins of knighthood’, in The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), pp. 158–70; Flori, L’Idéologie; Richard Barber, ‘When is a knight not a knight?’, in Stephen Church and Ruth Harvey (eds.), Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference, 1994 (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 1–17. Leyser, ‘Canon law’; Nelson, ‘Ninth-century knighthood’; Barthélemy, ‘La Chevalerie’; Goldberg, ‘More devoted’.

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Norms of warfare From the point of view of moral norms, how can we distinguish chivalry from the ideologies associated with earlier warrior elites, presuming that we do not want to describe the warrior bands of Beowulf or Homeric heroes as chivalrous? Two possible approaches are shown by the research of Stephen Jaeger and John Gillingham. Stephen Jaeger sees the chivalric ideology of the knight in the High Middle Ages as originating in Ottonian ideals of the courtier-bishop as a model of restraint and civilisation.311 Jaeger’s general claim that ‘growing reinement of the mind and of manners, and growing sensitivity to humanity gradually erode the aggressive warrior impulses of man’ is efectively exploded (in all senses) by a glance at the history of the twentieth century.312 More speciically, he claims that the rise of chivalry introduced a new restraint on the part of warriors; violence was no longer the immediate response to insults.313 Does the Carolingian evidence support this view? Ninth-century poetry and annals certainly show that insulting other warriors was still acceptable behaviour; ‘courteous speech’ was not yet required. Walter in Waltharius frequently taunts his enemies, once accompanied ‘with loud laughter’ (cachinnus);314 Abbo and Notker also show Frankish warriors mocking Danes and Slavs.315 Sedulius Scottus may say in Liber de rectoribus christianis that ‘you should not rejoice over the destruction of your enemy’,316 but he does precisely this in some of his poems.317 The sources do not support a view, however, that early medieval warriors reacted more violently to insults than later knights. Instead a pragmatic approach is seen, combining justiiable concerns by warriors about their honour with appropriate caution in initiating violence. Walter is angered by the insults of Gunther and his men, but continues to negotiate, and only ights when he is actually attacked.318 There is no Carolingian 311

312 313 314 315 316 317

C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210 (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 257–67. Ibid., pp. 195–6. Ibid., pp. 12–13, 137–9. See for example Waltharius, 654, 764–9, 979–80, 1435–8. Abbo i, 105–6; Notker 2:12, p. 75. LRC 17, p. 79. See for example Sedulius, Carmen ii:25, p. 191, 37–40: Dentibus infremuit, vultu nasoque superbo Ismahelita cadens, dentibus infremuit. Subdere colla gemit hostilis et horrida turma, Almis Francigenis subdere colla gemit. [The Ishmaelite falling, with his proud face, gnashed his teeth. The hostile and horrid troop groans, submitting their necks to the kind Franks.]

318

Waltharius, 591–673. An interesting parallel is that Unferth’s insults to Beowulf do not lead to violence: see Beowulf, trans. Michael Alexander (Harmondsworth, 1973), 499–594.

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Warfare equivalent to the celebration of reckless behaviour in Chrétien de Troyes’ poem Erec et Enide, when Erec, in order to revenge himself on a knight whose dwarf companion has insulted and injured him, simply abandons the queen he is escorting.319 The violent revenging of insults during ongoing hostilities was sometimes celebrated by Carolingian authors: Ermoldus Nigellus depicts the Frankish dux Hilthibert shooting a Moor who taunts him from the walls of the besieged city of Barcelona.320 In contrast, Regino initially seems to be celebrating the east Frankish dux Henry, who was provoked by spears and taunts from a group of Vikings and ‘unable to bear the indignity of this, rushed on them from greatness of spirit [animi magnitudine]’.321 Yet Regino then shows the disastrous consequences of such rashness, with Henry killed, his followers barely able to retrieve his body, and the army he commanded forced to retreat. Regino here follows in a long line of Carolingian authors blaming Frankish military disasters on the undisciplined behaviour of leaders eager for praise.322 Similarly, he has no sympathy for those responsible for starting the Conradine and Bamburger feud, which he describes as arising ‘from small and very small matters’ and leading to slaughter.323 This is in marked contrast to the approving tones in which Ottonian and Salian political discourse often describe violent responses to perceived attacks on magnates’ honour or status.324 If Carolingian sources are reluctant to give blanket approval to initiating violence on points of honour, this may partly have been due to an awareness of the extremely bloody consequences. John Gillingham, exploring a diferent moral aspect of chivalry, has convincingly argued that ‘the compassionate treatment of defeated high-status enemies is a deining characteristic of chivalry’, in contrast to a ‘certain camaraderie and a code of values common to the great aristocrats and their armed companions’ that is visible much earlier.325 Such behaviour was entirely compatible with extreme harshness towards those outside this privileged group: Charlemagne had 4,500 Saxon rebels executed in 782, but

319

320 322 324

325

Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide, ed. Mario Roques, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes édités d’après la copie de Guiot (Bibl. nat., fr. 794) 1 (Paris, 1955), 205–76. In honorem, 388–403. 321 Regino 887, p. 126. See below, p. 113. 323 Regino 897, p. 145. See for example Timothy Reuter, ‘The medieval German Sonderweg? The Empire and its rulers in the High Middle Ages’, in Anne J. Duggan (ed.), Kings and Kingship in the Middle Ages (London, 1993), pp. 179–211, at pp. 182–6. John Gillingham, ‘1066 and the introduction of chivalry into England’, in George Garnett and John Hudson (eds.), Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 31–55, at p. 32.

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Norms of warfare massacres were also carried out by rulers such as William the Conqueror, whom Gillingham sees as more ‘chivalrous’.326 An exploration of the treatment of high-status enemies in the Carolingian world needs to separate out diferent circumstances carefully. In cases of rebellion, most Carolingian rulers treated defeated opponents relatively mercifully, a tradition that was continued in Ottonian and Salian Germany, but that contrasts with late Anglo-Saxon England.327 Few Carolingian nobles were executed for their part in rebellions: three men were killed after the revolt by Pippin the Hunchback in 785, none after the revolt by Bernard of Italy in 818 and none after the rebellions by Louis the Pious’ sons in 830 and 833.328 Blinding was increasingly used as an alternative and highly symbolic punishment for treason in the Carolingian period.329 When nobles were executed for treason, there was usually some attempt at legal process: Bernard of Septimania, for example, was executed after a ‘judgement of the Franks’.330 There are no certain cases where members of the Carolingian dynasty deliberately killed their relatives, although it is possible that Pippin II of Italy was executed, and Bernard of Italy died as a result of his blinding.331 Captured or surrendered enemy leaders, whether Christians or not, were rarely killed: Tassilo; the Aquitanian dux Hunald; the Saxon leader Widukind; and the Saracen governor of Barcelona, Zado, are among those whom we know to have survived.332 Rasitz, the Moravian dux, was punished unusually harshly, by blinding, but only after a judgement ‘by the Franks, Bavarians and Slavs’, suggesting a clear wish to legitimise such punishment.333 The cases mentioned above, however, show politically motivated acts of mercy by rulers, made at their leisure. In actual battles and their aftermath, there is little evidence of mercy. Einhard reports the deaths of ‘very many’ Saxon and Frankish nobles in Charlemagne’s Saxon wars;334 in contrast, while ‘all the nobility of the Huns’ died in the Avar campaigns, only two Frankish nobles did.335 Battles that pitched Franks against Franks were just as ferocious as those between ‘diferent’ cultures: Janet Nelson has pointed out that the internal conlicts of 833–41 were marked by an increased level of violence.336 Large numbers of Franks, including nobles, 326 327 328 329

330 332 334

Ibid., pp. 54–5; ARF Rev. 782, pp. 63–5. Reuter, ‘Sonderweg?’, p. 197; Gillingham, ‘1066’, pp. 38–9. VK 20, pp. 25–6; ARF 818, p. 148; de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 206–7, 250–2. Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, ‘“Just anger” or “vengeful anger”? The punishment of blinding in the early medieval West’, in Barbara H. Rosenwein (ed.), Anger’s Past:The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1998), pp. 75–91. AB 844, p. 30. 331 Ibid. 864, p. 72; Astronomer 30, pp. 384–5. ARF 769, 785, 788, 801, pp. 30, 70, 80–2, 116. 333 AF 870, p. 72. VK 8, p. 11. 335 Ibid. 13, p. 16. 336 Nelson, ‘Search’, pp. 95–6.

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Warfare were also killed in the battles of the Angoumois in 844 (between the forces of Pippin II of Aquitaine and Charles the Bald) and Andernach in 876 (between Charles the Bald and Louis the Younger).337 The battle of Fontenoy in 841, in which the sons of Louis the Pious faced one another, was remembered long afterwards as particularly bloody. John Gillingham argues that Nithard’s account of the battle deliberately tries to cover up the lack of mercy shown by his own army in the pursuit. It was in such pursuits that decisions could be made more easily about capturing, rather than killing, enemy combatants.338 Gillingham suggests that as a result of the trauma of Fontenoy, subsequent conlicts between Franks were deliberately made less brutal, with more willingness visible to capture rather than kill during the pursuit.339 Yet even then, mercy was very much an afterthought.The Fulda annalist praises Louis the Younger for his humanity in sparing leading captives in 876, but only after ‘considerable slaughter’ of those leeing had taken place, while Hincmar also recounts how ‘those whom the pursuers did not want to kill led naked away’.340 It is also telling that burying of the enemy dead is shown several times as noteworthy: the burial of both sides’ dead at Fontenoy is speciically mentioned, for example.341 Ermoldus Nigellus shows the limits of respect in his description of the treatment of the Breton king Murman’s corpse. Soldiers bring his bloody head back to the camp to be admired by the ‘rejoicing’ Franks and also for identiication purposes. Ermoldus praises Louis’ ‘piety’ in ordering the subsequent burial of the body, but there is no condemnation of the earlier treatment of the corpse by either the ruler or poet.342 Such a celebration over Murman’s head should not be seen as particularly ‘barbarian’; the triumphal display of defeated enemies’ heads was also a late Roman imperial tradition.343 Vignettes of the behaviour of individual nobles reveal similar ruthlessness. Abbo describes conlict between Count William the Pious and Hugh, Count of Berry in 892, after Odo had given William’s honours to Hugh. When Hugh is captured, he appeals to the ‘illustrious’ (inclitus) William:344 This Hugh, when at length captured, begs From the sword of William, that his piety might help him 337 338

339 341 343

AB 844, 876, pp. 30–1, 133; AF 876, p. 88. John Gillingham, ‘Fontenoy and after: Pursuing enemies to death in France between the ninth and eleventh centuries’, in David Ganz and Paul Fouracre (eds.), Frankland: Essays Presented to Janet. L. Nelson (Manchester, 2008), pp. 242–65. Ibid., p. 255. 340 AF 876, p. 88; AB 876, p. 133. Nelson, ‘Violence’, p. 100. 342 In honorem, 1726–39. See for example McCormick, Eternal Victory, pp. 18, 36, 63. 344 Abbo ii, 555.

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Conclusion He replied that he had gone through his words too late And more quickly than said, the lance went through his breast.345

An anecdote by Ermoldus about William of Gellone (William the Pious’ great-grandfather) is equally revealing. During the siege of Barcelona, the captured Saracen leader Zado deies William and signals to the defenders of Barcelona not to open the gates. William promptly hits his bound and unarmed captive hard and tells him that it is only his ‘love and fear of the king’ that prevents him killing Zado.346 It is against that background that Walter’s conduct in Waltharius should be considered. Walter kills men who are begging for mercy or leeing without showing any remorse.347 Such behaviour contrasts with later chivalric conventions, at least as depicted in literary sources.348 Yet given the evidence of Abbo’s and Ermoldus’ poems, it seems doubtful that a Carolingian audience would have considered Walter’s behaviour as ‘unchristian’, as some modern scholars do.349 To modern sensibilities Walter’s subsequent care, in reuniting the bodies and heads of his victims and then praying for their souls, also seems grotesque.350 The parallels to the treatment of Murman’s body, however, suggests that contemporaries would probably have seen Walter’s behaviour as laudably pious in a situation where burial of the fallen was unrealistic. Conclusion The discourse of war in the Carolingian period is noticeably uniform, with few distinctions visible between clerical and lay views and relatively little development over time. Frankish authors rarely opposed any wars for moral reasons, unless Carolingian rulers were ighting each other; even in this case, partisan authors could sometimes ind reasons why such wars were ‘necessary’. Throughout the period, warfare against external enemies, whether defensive or ofensive, against Christian or 345

Ibid., 558–61: Hic Ugo dum tandem capitur mucrone Wilelmi, Supplicat, ut pietas ejus succurreret illi. Olli tam sero per verba measse respondit, Ocius et dicto trans pectora lancea transit.

346 348 349

350

In honorem, 524–9. 347 Waltharius, 751–3, 836–43. Kaeuper, ‘Chivalry’, p. 31. See for example Ursula Ernst, ‘Walther: Ein christlicher Held?’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 21 (1986), 79–83; Franz Brunhölzl, ‘Waltharius und kein Ende?’, in Udo Kindermann, Wolfgang Maaz and Fritz Wagner (eds.), Festschrift für Paul Klopsch, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 492 (Göppingen, 1988), pp. 46–55, at pp. 50–2. Waltharius, 1157–67.

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Warfare pagan enemies, was almost never problematic. Moralists drew lexibly on a range of justiications for war. Classical concepts of the need to enforce ‘rights’ and avenge ‘injuries’ done to the state351 were combined with speciically Christian duties to defend and extend ‘the Church of God’. Increasingly, the language of political Augustinism was also used to justify the wars of Carolingian rulers.352 If the Franks were God’s chosen people, led by His appointed ruler, rebels and the disobedient were also opposing God and must be punished. Yet Carolingian warfare also had a strong pragmatic streak. Moralists could implicitly distinguish between just wars and holy wars, contrary to Frederick Russell’s claims.353 Texts gloriied successful warfare more than righteous warfare and rarely praised defeats, however noble the combatants’ motives might have been.354 As a result, despite what a few churchmen argued, even compromises with Vikings were sometimes acceptable. The Christian language of peace could be appropriated to glorify non-violent methods of rulers achieving their desired goals. Ermoldus Nigellus, in particular, shows how both war and peace could be depicted as virtuous, provided they were accompanied by the ‘submission’ of external peoples. Several scholars have seen the tenth century as marking a distinctive and more positive view towards warfare and the ‘secular militia’.355 Yet this obscures the distinction between warriors as an ordo with the warrior as a role. Carolingian texts, like many Merovingian ones, repeatedly celebrate both warfare and warriors.While they do not outline a speciic code of conduct for behaviour in war, some implicit expectations are visible. Two main points emerge: that few forms of behaviour were intrinsically seen as wrong or immoral and that there were no clear dividing lines of conduct based on social status. One important issue when exploring the moral norms of Carolingian warfare is that discourses around war drew eclectically from several very diferent military traditions. One strand was based on epic poetry, whether barbarian or Virgilian, which celebrated the individual feats of independently minded and high-status heroes. Another inluential tradition was 351

352 354

355

These ideas were passed on to the Early Middle Ages via Isidore (Lenihan, ‘Inluence’, pp. 59–60). Halsall, Warfare and Society, p. 18 shows their use in Carolingian texts. Cf. Scharf, Die Kämpfe, pp. 165–74. Nelson, ‘Violence’, pp. 91–2. 353 Russell, Just War, p. 32. Leyser, ‘Warfare in the western European Middle Ages’, p. 190: ‘War was justiied by success in it. Moral censure began with failure.’ Erdmann, Origin, p. 57 puts the change at around 1000; Flori, L’Idéologie, pp. 103–20 speaks of ‘la valorisation de l’ordo pugnatorum au xe siècle’.

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Conclusion the Old Testament concept of the Israelites as a people under arms.Yet a third was a late antique model of the professional Roman soldier under imperial command. In terms of the acceptable moral norms for combat, the second and third models predominated. Unlike Gregory of Tours’ Histories, Carolingian sources have few detailed discussions of ‘private’ wars between magnates. The sources’ overwhelming focus was on ‘public’ war, conducted by legitimate rulers. As a result, there was little opportunity for an ideology of correct conduct in battle to develop. In a rightful war, any tactics, almost by deinition, were also rightful; the moral duty of the warrior was to serve the ruler and the res publica (commonwealth). Such an ideology did not allow warriors to choose when to ight, although a noble might be able to inluence this by his counsel. Similarly, it was for the ruler to choose acceptable tactics and exercise mercy: for an individual warrior to spare enemies without the king’s permission, or avoid particular methods of ighting, was negligent, if not treasonable. In the extreme Augustinian version of this, adopted by Jonas and Hincmar, the soldier was little more than the ruler’s instrument. For men to choose to ight in a militarily hopeless situation could be seen as harmful, depriving the ruler of valuable men. Throughout the second half of the ninth century, the repeated complaints by annalists about armies that achieved nothing ‘useful’ or ‘worthy’ against the Vikings or other enemies show this same pragmatic focus on the common good.356 Yet this ideological view of the role of the warrior was increasingly at odds with military realities. In practice, magnates, at least, probably had more choice in participation in the king’s wars than the sources reveal.357 The indiscipline of nobles eager for individual glory repeatedly led to military disasters. The Revised Frankish Annals show such behaviour as the cause of the Frankish defeat in the Süntel Mountains in 782; similar indiscipline and pride were blamed for east Frankish defeats throughout the ninth century.358 Political rhetoric stressed the martial qualities of all the Franks, and rulers increasingly required peasants to assist in defence, but there are hints that nobles were unhappy about military pretensions by social inferiors.359 356

357 358

359

See for example AB 853, 865, 868, 869, pp. 42, 80, 97, 101; AV 879, 885, 886, 891, 897, pp. 45, 56, 59, 70, 78; Regino 884, 887, 892, pp. 122, 125, 138. France, ‘Composition’. ARF Rev. 782, pp. 61–3; Eric J. Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conlict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY, 2006), pp. 141–4, 312. See above, p. 88.

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Warfare Nithard, the only lay warrior to write a substantial text, lays particular stress on ‘noble’ behaviour in the conduct of warfare.360 At one point he links this explicitly to Charles the Bald’s followers deciding whether or not to continue ighting.361 Yet such independent decisions by nobles are rarely discussed by the sources; Nithard’s emphasis elsewhere is on the collective concern for their honour by kings and their supporters.362 A code of chivalry for nobles could not develop far in a worldview focusing on public wars fought by ‘the Franks’: nobles, like humbler combatants, were expected by moralists to follow warrior-kings obediently. The same attitude is visible in The Battle of Maldon, where the author deliberately chooses to have his heroes represent all the social classes who normally fought.363 Two changes were required to develop more socially distinctive attitudes. One was a much clearer deinition from the late tenth century onwards of some classes of men as non-combatants. Reforming abbots and bishops were able to create an ideology in which the clergy as a whole were outside war and, together with poor laymen, were contrasted to lay nobles and their supporters.364 The other new element was an emphasis on military situations where high-status combatants had more freedom of choice. Matthew Strickland shows the private wars of eleventh-century Normandy as the setting where a heightened sense of knighthood and behavioural conventions developed together.365 The rhetoric of crusading stressed the individual warrior’s choice of whether or not to participate.366 Much chivalric literature similarly focuses on the ‘private’ combat of knights on quests or in tournaments. Unlike the supposedly simple decision in public war between obedience to the ruler and betrayal, the subtle distinctions of whether and how to ight in a particular private combat became part of codes of behaviour that separated knights from their inferiors. An education in such codes is a key part of the Arthurian stories around Percival, for example. A focus 360 361 363

364

365

366

See Nelson, ‘Ninth-century knighthood’, pp. 260–2; Chapter 4, p. 131. See above, p. 99. 362 See for example Nithard 2:10, p. 25. Ann Williams, ‘The battle of Maldon and “The Battle of Maldon”: History, poetry and propaganda’, Medieval History 2 (1992), 35–44, at pp. 42–4. R. I. Moore, ‘Family, community and cult on the eve of the Gregorian reform’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 30 (1980), 49–69. Matthew J. Strickland, ‘Slaughter, slavery or ransom: The impact of the Conquest on conduct in warfare’, in Carola Hicks (ed.), England in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, Harlaxton Medieval Studies 2 (Stamford, 1992), pp. 41–59, at pp. 56–8; and ‘Killing or clemency? Ransom, chivalry and changing attitudes to defeated opponents in Britain and Northern France, 7–12th centuries’, in Hans-Henning Kortüm (ed.), Krieg im Mittelalter (Berlin, 2001), pp. 93–122. Colin Morris, ‘Individualism in twelfth-century religion: Some further relections’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (1980), 195–206, at pp. 200–1.

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Conclusion on wars and combats of choice allowed the clear binaries of chivalric ideology to develop, in which nobles and knights were armed, brave and courteous, while peasants were unarmed, cowardly and boorish. Most Carolingian sources do not yet express such contrasts, even if some lay noblemen may have felt them; instead an ideology is visible in which almost all laymen could aspire to masculine bravery in warfare.

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Chapter 4

IMAGI NING POWER

Any discussion of moral norms for Carolingian lay noblemen must include attitudes towards power, since eighth- and ninth-century Frankish society was marked by strong social inequalities. Moralising texts often used a binary opposition between potentes (the powerful) and pauperes (the ‘poor’), although in reality the situation was probably more complicated.1 In contrast to late Anglo-Saxon England,2 Frankish texts stress elite power more than wealth: potentes are far more frequent than divites (the rich). Many Carolingian sources also saw the pauperes in terms of lack of power or dependence, rather than poverty.3 Some texts, however, do contrast the ‘poor man’ and the ‘rich man’; Hans-Werner Goetz saw the pairing of pauper–dives as typical of narrative sources;4 it is also found in the lay mirrors.5 Power and nobility were also closely connected, but not conceptually equivalent.6 Jonas, for example, complains about the 1

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3

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Giles Constable, ‘Was there a medieval middle class? Mediocres (mediani, medii) in the Middle Ages’, in Samuel K. Cohn and Steven A. Epstein (eds.), Portraits of Medieval and Renaissance Living: Essays in Memory of David Herlihy (Ann Arbor, 1996), pp. 301–23 shows continuing references to terms indicating some kind of intermediate group. M. R. Godden, ‘Money, power and morality in late Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990), 41–65. Karl Bosl, ‘Potens und pauper: Begrifsgeschichtliche Studien zur gesellschaftlichen Diferenzierung im frühen Mittelalter und zum “Pauperismus” des Hochmittelalters’, Frühformen der Gesellschaft in mittelalterlichen Europa: Ausgewählte Beiträge zu einer Strukturanalyse der mittelalterlichen Welt (Munich, 1964), pp. 106–34; Jean Devisse, ‘“Pauperes” et “paupertas” dans le monde carolingien: Ce qu’en dit Hincmar de Reims’, Revue du nord 48 (1966), 273–87, at p. 279; Régine Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘“Pauperes” et “paupertas” dans L’Occident carolingien aux ixe et xe siècles’, Revue du nord 50 (1968), 169–87. Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘“Unterschichten” im Gesellschaftsbild karolingischer Geschichtsschreiber und Hagiographen’, in Hans Mommsen and Winfried Schulze (eds.), Vom Elend der Handarbeit: Probleme historischer Unterschichtenforschung, Bochumer Historische Studien 24 (Stuttgart, 1981), 108–30, at pp. 115–16. See for example LM 4:9, p. 162; DIL 3:11, cols. 254–5. Martindale, ‘French aristocracy’, pp. 15–20.

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Imagining power neglect of duty by ‘some powerful men [potentes] and certain noble married women [matronae]’.7 As Jonas’ comment suggests, power in Carolingian society was largely, but not totally, gendered. Women too could occasionally be called potentes; the Council of Meaux–Paris declared that preventing sexual disorder in households was the responsibility of ‘powerful men and especially powerful women’.8 Women were deliberately excluded from some forms of power, especially participation in ‘public’ fora such as assemblies.9 Yet they had an important and active role in such aspects of power as managing households, owning and donating land, and strengthening kin and friendship networks.10 The fact that power could transcend gender is seen in naming practices and also when sources give genealogies that are not purely patrilinear.11 Moral texts rarely state explicitly that power, other than within marriage, had to be exercised by men rather than women. This is simply assumed: a silence that may itself have been an efective exclusionary tactic. However, it meant that powerful women were not intrinsically problematic, and sometimes exercised control over free men, such as having their own homines.12 Such women, however, had to stick to well-deined roles: Janet Nelson shows worries about the political role of Charlemagne’s daughters, royal women who were not queens.13 Agobard criticised the Empress Judith for her unitness for her role as queen, failing to exercise legitimate feminine authority in the correct way.14 Moralists were also ambivalent about women as counsel-givers.15 Perhaps because powerful women were not seen as an anomaly, there is no evidence that low status and lack of power removed a man’s claim to masculinity, in contrast to classical Roman views that only elite males were truly men.16 The few terms for subordinates that imply 7 8

9 10

11 12 13

14 16

DIL 2:16, col. 197. Council of Meaux–Paris 845–6, MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 124, c. 77: ‘viri potentes et maxime potentes femin[a]e’. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Patriarchs’, unpublished Carlyle lecture, University of Oxford, 4 February 1999. On the roles of royal and noble women, see Janet L. Nelson,‘Women at the court of Charlemagne: A case of monstrous regiment?’, in John Carmi Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship (New York, 1993), pp. 43–61; Hans-Werner Goetz, Frauen im frühen Mittelalter: Frauenbild und Frauenleben im Frankenreich (Weimar, 1995), pp. 199–231; Garver, Women. See for example Thegan 26, p. 214 on Judith. See Chapter 6, p. 191. Janet L. Nelson, ‘La Cour impériale de Charlemagne’, in Le Jan, Royauté, pp. 177–91, at pp. 190–1. Ward, ‘Agobard’, pp. 20–1. 15 See Chapter 5, pp. 142–3. Jonathan Walters, ‘Invading the Roman body: Manliness and impenetrability in Roman thought’, in Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner (eds.), Roman Sexualities (Princeton, 1997), pp. 29–43.

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Imagining power their lack of adult maleness, such as pueri, were also used jokingly by those of relatively high status.17 The (male and female) pauperes were frequently linked with widows and orphans in capitularies as needing protection.Yet the terms commonly used of them, such as pauperes and minus potentes (less powerful), do not suggest a loss of masculinity as their deining characteristic. Nor do authors, such as Nithard and Dhuoda, who discuss elite laymen, see domination as a key aspect of masculinity.18 Power in Carolingian Francia came from a number of sources: Regino describes the pride of the Conradine and Babenberger families ‘about their nobility of lesh, the multitude of their relatives, the greatness of their earthly power’.19 There has been considerable scholarly research on the ethics of royal power.20 In contrast, moral studies of non-royal power have largely focused on a few speciic topics, such as slave-owning, the administration of justice and wealth.21 There have been few attempts to look at broader questions of the moral legitimacy of power as a whole.22 The lack of historical research on the morality of power as a whole may relect wider scholarship, in which power is more often a research topic of sociology and politics than Christian ethics.23 As a conceptual basis for a study of the ethics of power, it is useful to start with the extensive literature on the mechanisms of power in the Carolingian world.There are several strands of this scholarship.The older scholarly tradition is of constitutional history, focusing on institutions, and attempting to reconstruct a coherent legal system from normative sources.24 More recent studies of power have often analysed powerholding kin groups,25 or individual localities and interactions, looking

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19 20 21 22

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Donald A. Bullough, ‘Albuinus deliciosus Karoli regis: Alcuin of York and the shaping of the early Carolingian court’, in Fenske, Rösener and Zotz, Institutionen, pp. 73–92, at p. 91. Meg Leja,‘The making of men, not masters: Right order and lay masculinity according to Dhuoda and Nithard’, Comitatus 39 (2008), 1–40, at pp. 38–9. Regino 897, p. 145. See for example Anton, Fürstenspiegel; Staubach, Rex Christianus; Meens, ‘Politics’. See below, pp. 159–61, 178–9, 215–17. One important exception is Paul Fouracre, ‘Conlict, power and legitimation in Francia in the late seventh and eighth centuries’, in Isabel Alfonso, Hugh Kennedy and Julio Escalonia (eds.), Building Legitimacy: Political Discourses and Forms of Legitimacy in Medieval Societies, Medieval Mediterranean 53 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 3–26. Christine Firer Hinze, Comprehending Power in Christian Social Ethics, American Academy of Religion Academy Series 93 (Atlanta, 1995), p. 3. On this tradition see Patrick Wormald, ‘Introduction’, in Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre (eds.), The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 1–5. See for example Werner, ‘Important noble families’; Michael Borgolte, Geschichte der Grafschaften Alemanniens in fränkischer Zeit,Vorträge und Forschungen Sonderband 31 (Sigmaringen, 1984).

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Imagining power at power ‘in action’.26 There have also been a few attempts to produce broader structural models of early medieval power.27 Such studies indicate the many components of power. The building block of Carolingian society was the individual household: the most basic form of power was control over one’s own familia. Local power was based on landholding and the control over labour this might entail. Diferences are visible in rural society in diferent regions of the Carolingian empire: Chris Wickham argues that regional aristocracies were more prominent in the Rhineland and northern Italy than in eastern Brittany and Catalonia. However, all the well-documented regions have local hierarchies, as well as varying proportions of free tenants, the unfree and independent peasant cultivators.28 Such local aristocracies had varied forms of support, including armed followers,29 and networks of kinship and friendship. Informal patronage, as well as formal links of dependence (personal lordship) were constants.30 Régine Le Jan stresses the importance of these local connections as ‘anchorage points’ even for the elite who acted transregionally.31 Central power, by contrast, came from the ruler. In its public form it meant oice-holding, but royal favour could also bring more informal forms of power and inluence. Diferent forms of power were interlocking: Le Jan talks of an interpenetration of private and public power.32 Noble birth and connections to oice-holders did not give a right to oice, but were normally a prerequisite.33 Once men held such public power, they could further increase their private power and wealth.34 Nor were these power structures static. Numerous donations of land to monasteries made them into signiicant sources of local power.35 Landlords increased their demands over their tenants and also threatened the position of independent peasants. Rulers from Charlemagne onwards tried to link centres of local power, such 26

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29 30 32 34

See for example Stephen D. White, ‘“Pactum … legem vincit et amor judicium”: The settlement of disputes by compromise in eleventh-century Western France’, American Journal of Legal History 22 (1978), 281–308; Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre, (eds.), Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1995); Innes, State. See for example Dick Harrison, ‘Structures and resources of power in early medieval Europe’, in Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger and Helmut Reimitz (eds.), The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artefacts, Transformation of the Roman World 12 (Leiden, 2003), pp. 17–37; Wickham, Framing. Chris Wickham, ‘Rural society in Carolingian Europe’, in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History.Volume II: c. 700–c. 900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 510–37. See Chapter 3, pp. 70–1; Chapter 6, pp. 188–90. Wickham, ‘Rural society’, pp. 531–2. 31 Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 406–13. Ibid., p. 101. 33 See Chapter 5, p. 149. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 144–5. 35 Innes, State, pp. 47–50.

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Imagining power as monasteries, into the wider state.36 Some areas saw particularly rapid developments: the area east of the Rhine went from a ‘wild east’ to a full Carolingian kingdom in just over 100 years.37 Much recent analysis has contrasted local and central power, often discussed in terms of public and private distinctions, although this terminology is problematic.38 As Matthew Innes has pointed out, Carolingian sources themselves see only public power or its lack.39 Nevertheless, it seems useful to examine the ‘oicial’ powers involved in oice-holding and the legal system together in Chapter 5, to explore if moralists did treat them diferently. Chapter 6 will focus on the various forms of power exercised via personal relationships.40 The role of the courtier cannot easily be itted into binary models of public and private or oicial and personal power, since inluential men at court did not necessarily hold any formal position there.41 Nevertheless, moral discussions about courtiers are often conducted in the same terms as those concerning oice-holders, and I have therefore treated the power that courtiers might exert in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 7 will be dedicated to the broad questions of wealth, taking in both landowning and money. This chapter, however, will explore the more general attitudes of moralists towards power, by focusing on some key terms and images. How did moralists regard the existing social hierarchy and was it seen as relecting or inverting a moral hierarchy? Were the powerful seen as particularly prone to the grave sin of pride? Did moral texts distinguish between the social and ethical meanings of the term nobilis? T he morality of social h ie rarchy From very early on, Christian thought largely came to accept and validate the existing structures of earthly power, from the household control of slaves to the principle that secular authority was divinely ordained. This view was reinforced both by the tendency of fourthcentury Christians to see the Roman empire as providential, and by

36 38

39 40

41

Ibid., pp. 187–8. 37 Ibid., pp. 220–1. See for example Chris Wickham, ‘Debate: The “feudal revolution”’, Past and Present 155 (1997), 196–208, at pp. 202–4. On the problems of the distinction, see Janet L. Nelson, ‘The problematic in the private’, Social History 15 (1990), 355–65. Innes, State, pp. 255–8. Gerd Althof , Verwandte, Freunde und Getreue: Zum politischen Stellenwert der Gruppenbindungen im früheren Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 1990), pp. 7–9 stresses the importance of social groups to medieval people. See Chapter 2, pp. 38–9 on Matfrid.

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The morality of social hierarchy a Neoplatonic tradition that stressed the similarities between earthly and celestial hierarchies.42 Perhaps because this tradition was so deeply embedded, Carolingian texts give relatively few explicit justiications of the lay social hierarchy below the ruler.43 Jonas is the only one of the lay mirror writers to provide an explanation for hierarchies, quoting Gregory the Great: ‘Nature begot all men [homines] equal, but with varying order of merit, a hidden dispensation put some after [postponit] others.’44 Paulinus, Alcuin and Dhuoda, in contrast, make no attempt to explain why their addressees have, or will have power over other men. Instead, the various forms of power were implicitly, or occasionally explicitly, seen as natural, or God-given. Moralists routinely cited Romans 13:1: ‘There is no power except from God.’45 Wulfad of Bourges, in a general letter to the clergy and people of his diocese, told the pauperes and less powerful to be faithful to their lords (domini): ‘knowing that they are ordained by God to be over you’.46 Nobility was apparently understood as existing forever: there is no mythology of how nobles as a group came into being, unlike in some later medieval societies.47 Nor was there any obvious way in which a man could be ennobled, in contrast both to the Roman idea of ennoblement of ‘new men’ through holding particular oices, and later practices of elevation to the peerage.48 A sense that nobility and social hierarchy were both long-established and ‘natural’ made it therefore almost automatic for Carolingian moralists to imagine them as morally good.The repeated images of Jesus are of him as king and judge; Christ as sufering servant is less frequently seen. Even Paulinus, the mirror writer with most reservations about worldly power, nevertheless several times compares serving God to serving an emperor.49 Dhuoda, wanting to teach William reverence in prayer, reminds him how humbly people should beg favours from powerful secular men.50

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R. A. Markus, ‘The Latin fathers’, in J. H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350–c. 1450 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 92–122, at p. 93; Iogna-Prat, Order and Exclusion, pp. 9–13. Fouracre, ‘Conlict, power and legitimation’, p. 22. On the late Carolingian development of the theory of the ‘three orders’ see Chapter 3, p. 90. Jonas, DIL 2:22, col. 213, quoting Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job 21:15; see Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, ed. M. Adriaen, 2 vols., CCSL 143a–b (Turnhout, 1979),Vol. i, p. 1082. See for example LM 3:4, p. 94; DIR 8, p. 222; LRC 1, p. 22; De regis 18, col. 845. Wulfad of Bourges, Epistola 27, in Epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 6 (Berlin, 1925), pp. 188–92, at p. 191. See for example Paul Freedman, ‘Cowardice, heroism and the legendary origins of Catalonia’, Past and Present 121 (1988), 3–28; Reuter, ‘Medieval nobility’, pp. 193–4. Gelzer, The Roman Nobility, pp. 32–3. LE 8, 9, 19, cols. 204–6, 212. 50 LM 2:3, p. 76.

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Imagining power Nor was this positive view of hierarchy restricted to the spiritual ield. Paulinus described hell as destroying hierarchy: ‘where there is no honour of senior and king, nor is the master over the servus’.51 Abbo follows the description of children being massacred before their parents’ eyes in Viking raids, with the statement: ‘the unfree is made free, the free unfree; the house slave is made a lord, and in contrast the lord is also made a house slave’.52 Ermoldus Nigellus repeatedly celebrates rituals with everyone assembled ‘in his order’.53 Such a discourse made the unsuitable treatment of nobiles a potent symbol of extreme wickedness: when Paschasius wanted to show Bernard of Septimania’s harmful efect on Louis the Pious’ court, he described it as a time when ‘the best of men, the most eminent and noble and most distinguished, now laid aside [omiserant] authority to act’.54 There was harsh condemnation of those who sought to overturn the social hierarchy: several writers comment on the ‘nobleness’ of the crushing of the Stellinga revolts.55 Instead the lower orders had simply to accept their lot. As the Council of Pavia in 845 × 850 put it, complaining about the fact that some ‘powerful and noble laymen’ rarely went to the main churches: ‘When only the alicted and pauperes come, what other preaching can there be than that they should bear evils patiently?’56 The best that such people could hope for is made clear by several Carolingian vitae, in which saints show their exceptional holiness by treating potentes and pauperes equally.57 On the other hand, even the socially lowest class, the unfree, were rarely described as intrinsically morally inferior.58 Occasionally, moralists warned lay noblemen of the vagaries of worldly power, but this often seems purely conventional. Dhuoda wants William to be patient in adversity,59 but emphasises that many biblical characters, after trials, are restored to their previous position or raised even higher.60 The same kind of ‘rebound’ factor, in which the powerful but good man can only lose his status temporarily, is visible in Paschasius’ accounts of Adalard and Wala. A series of events is shown where the heroes renounce power, or have it taken away from them, but then have it restored.61

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LE 49, col. 253. Abbo, i:184–5: ‘Eicitur servus liber, liber quoque servus, / Vernaque it dominus, contra dominus quoque verna.’ See for example In honorem, 320, 789, 858–9, 939. EA 2:7, col. 1615. 55 AX 842, p. 13; Nithard 4:4, p. 45. MGH Conc. 3:21, p. 211, c. 3. Bosl, ‘Potens und pauper’, p. 73; Willibald, Vita Bonifatii 3, p. 12. See Chapter 6, pp. 185–6. 59 Lm 5:4, p. 174. 60 Ibid. 5:1, 5:6–7, pp. 168, 174–6. See for example VA 11–14, 32, 45, cols. 1514–16, 1525, 1532; EA 1:6, 1:11, cols. 1572, 1583.

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Moral hierarchy The wheel of fortune might turn for Carolingian rulers;62 this image, however, was not applied to other laymen. Moral hie rarchy Moral thought can combine belief in the necessity of social hierarchy with a conviction of the moral superiority of the poor; this is seen, for example, in the New Testament. Yet there is no exaltation of the poor and powerless in the Carolingian period, even by writers with an unusual concern for them. As Jean Devisse points out, Hincmar does not exalt poverty as a virtue, but sees it as a normal way of life.63 Similarly, despite Paulinus’ hostility to worldliness, he could imagine poverty and powerlessness only negatively: the devil must be renounced ‘lest we remain orphans and pauperes’.64 Carolingian authors generally see the ‘lower orders’ largely as an object for action by the elite, rather than as active themselves.65 The relationship moralists drew between secular power and virtue is more complicated.There was a late antique Christian tradition of denouncing the misdeeds of the potentes.66 Carolingian capitularies and councils continue to stress the potentes as oppressors of the poor.67 However the term did not have purely negative connotations, as has sometimes been stated.68 Occasionally the term could be used neutrally, simply to indicate a social group, as in Charles the Bald’s proclamation that counterfeiters should be pursued even if they had led to ‘the immunity or power or property of whatever powerful man’.69 Many of the other terms used for describing the lay powerful were positive, or at least neutral: primores, proceres, optimates, boni homines. Hincmar, quoting the seventh-century Irish writer Pseudo-Cyprian, claimed ‘some through the oice of domination [dominandi oicium] come nearer to God: some with such an honour of dignity laid on them become worse’.70 While one Carolingian sermon writer cited Isidore of Seville saying that it was scarcely possible

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See for example LRC 14, 16, pp. 62–6, 72–7; Regino 887, p. 128. Devisse, ‘Pauperes’, p. 286. 64 LE 63, col. 273. Bosl, ‘Potens und pauper’, p. 85. Stephen Weinberger, ‘La Transformation des Potentes dans la Provence médiévale (ive–xie s.)’, Le moyen âge 97 (1991), 159–69, at pp. 160–2. See Chapter 6, pp. 223–5. Weinberger, ‘La Transformation des Potentes’; Fouracre, ‘Conlict, power and legitimation’, p. 9 See for example Edictum Pistense 864, MGH Cap. ii:273, p. 317, c. 18. Cf. above p. 117 on the Council of Meaux–Paris 845–6. Ad episcopos 8, col. 1012 (quoting Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 44). On the De duodecim abusivis see Meens, ‘Politics’, pp. 349–57 and the literature cited.

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Imagining power to avoid sin in secular activity, this sentiment was not taken up by other Carolingian moralists.71 P ride The same lack of consistency is seen when Carolingian moralists discuss pride, often described as the worst of all sins.72 Karl Bosl saw the contrast of humility (humilitas) and pride (superbia) as corresponding directly to the distinction of pauper and potens.73 Superbia, however, is a rather slippery concept. The superbia of kings and nobles in Carolingian poetry and narrative sources often seems to refer primarily to military over-conidence, in an interesting parallel with the much-debated use of ofermode in The Battle of Maldon.74 In Waltharius, for example, Attila, the all-conquering ruler, is never called superbus; yet Gunther repeatedly is.75 Similarly,Walter’s one slip into superbia is when he says that no Frank will take any of his treasure unharmed.76 He immediately realises his mistake, begs forgiveness of God and ‘cautiously’ examining his foes, recognises that Hagan is a skilled opponent.77 Annals, similarly, repeatedly describe those who oppose Frankish rulers as defeated owing to their own ‘pride’ and ‘arrogance’.78 Yet while Ermoldus Nigellus uses this terminology frequently for Murman and the Bretons when they defy the Franks,79 he does not apply it to Zado, the Moorish leader of Barcelona. The fact that Ermoldus shows Zado promptly realising at the start of the Frankish campaign that only additional troops can prevent his city’s capture again suggests that superbia should here be seen as a practical failing, as much as a moral one.80 Outside battle, other moral texts show very varied ideas of superbia. Alcuin produces the following deinitions: superbia … happens from contempt of the mandates of God. It also happens when the mind is raised about its good works and thinks itself better than others … Superbia also happens through obstinacy, when men despise obeying their seniores.81 71

72 73 74

75 76 78

79

Sermonary of Salzburg, Sermon xlviii, ed. McCune, ‘Edition’, Part 2, p. 57 citing Isidore of Seville, Isidorus Hispalensis Sententiae, ed. Pierre Cazier, CCSL 111 (Turnhout, 1998), iii:48, p. 297. See for example DVV 23, col. 630; DIL 3:4, col. 239. Bosl, ‘Potens und pauper’, pp. 86–7. See for example Helmut Gneuss, ‘The Battle of Maldon 89: Byrthnoð’s ofermod once again’, Studies in Philology 73 (1976), 117–37. See for example Waltharius, 468, 573, 628. Ibid., 561–3. 77 Ibid., 564–71. See for example ARF 810, p. 130 (King Godefrid); ARF 819, p. 150 (Duke Ljudovit); VK 11, p. 14 (Tassilo); Regino 890, p. 134 (Zwentibold). In honorem, 1277, 1296, 1560, 1586, 1726. 80 Ibid., 350–61.81 DVV 27, p. 29.

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Pride Vainglory [vana gloria] is when a man strives after being praised in his good work and does not give honour to God nor attribute to divine grace whatever good he has done, but acts as if he has from himself either dignity of secular honours or adornment of spiritual wisdom.82

Alcuin is thus concerned not only about pride coming from high worldly status, but also the pride of subordinates and spiritual pride about good deeds. Jonas similarly sees pride as arising: ‘when someone thinks himself better than others either because of his virtues [virtutes] or his earthly riches’.83 In contrast, Dhuoda’s chapter on the need for William to avoid pride makes no mention of how such pride might have arisen.84 Jonas and Theodulf are the two authors who discuss in most detail the possibility that high social status might lead to pride. Jonas devotes a whole chapter of his mirror to condemning those who ‘do not recognise those whom they surpass in power and honours and riches as equals to themselves by nature’. He also complains that some people show honour only to rich parents and rich priests, not to poor ones.85 Theodulf similarly stresses equality in his poem on judges: Be very gentle, whoever you are, set over the poor, You should know them to be equal to you by nature. Not condition but fault has put them under you, Which allows that man may be subjected to man.86

How radical a statement Theodulf intended, however, is unclear: Paul Freedman shows how patristic writers difered on whether subordination was due to the speciic sinfulness of those subjugated, or a culpability common to all humanity.87 Theodulf also gives a vivid description of the attack of personiied Pride on a judge: Pride claims that the judge makes himself ‘ignoble’ by humility.88 Is this the authentic voice of the Carolingian nobility? If so, 82 85 86

Ibid. 34, pp. 34–5. 83 DIL 3:4, col. 240. See Chapter 7, pp. 219–20. Paraenesis, 895–8, p. 516:

84

LM 4:3, p. 132.

Pauperibus quicumque praees, mitissimus esto, Teque his natura noveris esse parem. Non hos condicio tibimet, sed culpa subegit, Quae dedit ut homini subditus esset homo. 87 88

Paul Freedman, Images of the Medieval Peasant (Stanford, 1999), p. 79. Paraenesis, 469–74, p. 505: Ecce humilis plebis ieri pars una laboras Dum pius et clemens omnibus esse cupis. Ordo gradusque tuus levat ad sublimia temet, Cur te sponte premis, qui loca celsa tenes?

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Imagining power Theodulf ’s proposed solution does not seriously imperil the status of such men. The remedy, as Humility and Wisdom show the judge, is simply to remember one’s death and the equality of all then.89 Jonas, too argues that the powerful can lose their pride without their trappings of rank, saying: ‘Some are thought to swell with pride because of their ineness and splendour of dress; although this often may be accustomed to emanate from the fountain of pride, yet there are many who are ornamented outside with these things and inside are powerful with humility.’90 There is no suggestion here that those in ine dress have to take it of, if they are already suitably humble. Even moralists who did see pride as a particular problem for the powerful thus demanded only a change of attitude, not of social practices. Other authors, such as Dhuoda and Alcuin, preferred to concentrate on forms of pride common to all humans. Nob i lity and vi rtue If there was no agreement on the general question of whether the powerful were more or less virtuous than the powerless, was there consensus about the relationship between nobilitas and virtus? Discussions of this question had a complicated history in the Roman and post-Roman West. To be nobilis in the late Roman republic and early empire was normally to be descended from holders of speciic high oice, although writers such as Cicero and Juvenal argued that it was personal actions and character, not descent, that made one truly noble.91 Michelle Salzman has shown how late antique western bishops adapted Christian discourses on nobility to make them more acceptable to elite would-be converts. Traditional aristocratic nobilitas was incorporated into Christian nobilitas; although writers claimed that Christian nobility came from faith, in practice they used the term only of those already noble in secular terms. Writers like Jerome and Ambrose enthusiastically Nam si perspicias, non hic mediocriter erras, Cum te degenerem simplicitate facis. [‘Behold, you strive humbly to be made one with the common people since you desire to be pious and merciful to all. Your order and grade lift you to the highest position. Why do you willingly bow down, who hold a lofty position? For if you should understand, you are mistaken more than moderately, when you make yourself ignoble by simplicity.’] 89 Paraenesis, 509–88, pp. 506–8. 90 DIL 3:4, col. 241: ‘Putantur autem nonnulli propter cultum et splendorem vestium, superbia tumescere; quod dum plerumque ex fonte superbiae soleat emanare, plures tamen sunt qui exterius his ornantur, et interius humilitate pollent.’ 91 Michelle Renee Salzman, ‘Competing claims to “nobilitas” in the Western empire of the fourth and ifth centuries’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 9 (2001), 359–85, at pp. 359–61.

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Nobility and virtue propagated the idea of ‘noble by birth but nobler by religion’, while very few authors suggested that Christian nobilitas was available to all, regardless of social rank.92 Jerome’s Vulgate translation of the Bible similarly maintains the classical connotations of the term nobilis, linking social and moral superiority.93 The well-known celebration of the ‘noble saint’ in the Merovingian period is now seen as relecting continuity with such late antique thought, rather than being a Christianisation of a supposed Germanic aristocratic charisma (Adelsheil).94 It is less clear whether this discourse afected ideas about lay noblemen, rather than those who converted to a religious life. Martin Heinzelmann points out that for Gregory of Tours, the key social igure was not the noble in himself, but the noble, holy bishop; there was no speciic role for the nobility as a class in his model of Christian society.95 Indeed, Gregory largely saw secular nobles negatively.96 Other scholars, however, have argued that noble families in the Merovingian period sought to gain prestige via association with the saints, the so-called ‘noble self-sanctiication’.The use of this term is controversial, partly because of its links with ideas of Germanic charisma;97 I have kept it solely as a convenient shorthand. I will not attempt here to add to the extensive debate on the Merovingian evidence.98 Instead, I want to explore whether the tactics visible then were still signiicant in the Carolingian period.

92 93 94

95 96 97

98

Salzman, ‘Elite realities’, pp. 358–60; ‘Competing claims’. Nelson, ‘Nobility’, pp. 44–5. Werner Hechberger, ‘Die Theorie vom Adelsheil im früheren Mittelalter’, in Franz-Rainer Erkens (ed.), Das frühmittelalterliche Königtum: Ideelle und religiöse Grundlagen, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 49 (Berlin, 2005), pp. 427–45. Heinzelmann, ‘“Adel” und “Societas sanctorum”’, pp. 246, 254–5. Ibid., p. 246. Paul Fouracre, ‘The origins of the Carolingian attempt to regulate the cult of saints’, in James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (eds.), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), pp. 143–65, at p. 149. See for example Karl Bosl, ‘Der “Adelsheilige”, Idealtypus und Wirklichkeit, Gesellschaft und Kultur in merowingischerzeitlichen Bayern der 7. und 8. Jahrhundert’, in Clemens Bauer, Laetitia Boehm and Max Müller (eds.), Speculum historiale: Geschichte im Spiegel von Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsdeutung (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1965), pp. 167–87; Friedrich Prinz, ‘Aristocracy and Christianity in Merovingian Gaul: An essay’, in Karl Bosl (ed.), Gesellschaft, Kultur, Literatur: Rezeption und Originalität im Wachsen einer europäischen Literatur und Geistigkeit. Beiträge Luitpold Wallach gewidmet, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 11 (Stuttgart, 1975), pp. 153–65; Martin Heinzelmann, ‘Sanctitas und “Tugendadel”: Zu Konzeptionen von “Heiligkeit” im 5. und 10. Jahrhundert’, Francia 5 (1977), 741–52; Lellia Cracco Ruggini, ‘The crisis of the noble saint: The “Vita Arnuli ”’, in Jacques Fontaine and J. N. Hillgarth (eds.), The Seventh Century: Change and Continuity. Proceedings of a Joint French and British Colloquium Held at the Warburg Institute 8–9 July 1988, Studies of the Warburg Institute 42 (London, 1992), pp. 116–48.

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Imagining power Noble se lf -sanctif i cation Friedrich Prinz distinguishes three methods used by the Merovingian nobility to gain religious and social prestige via Christianity: families attempting to ‘create’ a saint from their own lineage, the acquiring and donation of relics to family monasteries, and the patronage of old and prestigious cult centres.99 It is striking that in their lay mirrors Alcuin, Jonas and Paulinus make no mention of such practices, especially since Alcuin and Jonas were hagiographers themselves, and so might be expected to encourage the development of cults. The evidence from the three lay people whose views we know best, Einhard, Nithard and Dhuoda, is also mixed. Einhard has been seen as a patron who combined secular and spiritual patronage through his acquiring of relics.100 We possess his detailed account of how he obtained the relics of SS. Marcellinus and Peter for his church of Seligenstadt and the miracles these relics performed.101 Their importance to him is conirmed by their mention in his epitaph.102 Other sources, however, suggest a more limited impact of their cult. Walahfrid’s prologue to the Vita Karoli, eulogising Einhard, makes no mention of the saints. References to them in Einhard’s own letters are also carefully deployed. They occur frequently when he requests favours for Seligenstadt, for sanctuary seekers at the shrine, or for permission to retire there himself.103 They are also mentioned in his letter to Lupus after the death of his wife, Emma (where he admits his dejection that the martyrs have failed to answer his requests and healed her) and in a letter requesting prayer from the monks of Seligenstadt.104 Yet when Einhard is requesting other kinds of favours for himself, his friends and his clients, such as beneices or exemptions from military service, there are no references to the two saints.105 Unlike the incessant Petrine rhetoric of papal correspondence, Einhard’s letters suggest he gained a fairly limited political and religious prestige from his hard-won martyrs; as Matthew Innes points out, Seligenstadt’s estates also remained small, possibly because Lorsch and Fulda had already ‘mopped up’ potential benefactors in the area.106 99 101 103

104 105

106

Prinz, ‘Aristocracy’, pp. 160–2. 100 Innes, State, p. 30. On this text see above, p. 32. 102 MGH Poet. ii, pp. 237–8, 9–12. See for example Einhard, Epistolae 10, 13–16, 18, 33, 37, 46–50, 52, 60, pp. 113–14, 116–20, 126, 128, 133–4, 135–6, 139–40. Lupus, Epistola 3, pp. 9–10; Einhard, Epistola 53, p. 136. See for example Einhard, Epistolae 1, 6–7, 17, 19, 23–5, 27–30, 32, 34, 39, 42, 44, 58, 62–5, pp. 109, 112, 119–27, 129, 131–2, 138–41. Some of these letters may have been written before Einhard acquired the relics in 828, but a number are thought to be later than this. Innes, State, pp. 30–1.

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Noble self-sanctiication Nithard’s attempts at self-sanctiication also seem quite limited. This may have been partly because his family connection to a ‘saint’ was peculiarly problematic: he was the bastard son of Angilbert, abbot of St-Riquier, from his liaison with Charlemagne’s daughter, Bertha.Towards the end of his histories Nithard recorded the translation of Angilbert and explicitly stated his relationship to him, but this remained marginal to his political strategy.107 As Janet Nelson has shown, Nithard’s interest was probably a fallback position, after his political hopes from Charles the Bald failed.108 Perhaps relecting this, Nithard’s epitaph stresses his royal descent, but not his saintly connections.109 Nor is Dhuoda interested in such methods of gaining spiritual power. She makes no reference to family monasteries or collecting relics, and there are no speciic saints she wants William to show devotion to. This is particularly surprising because there was one obvious family candidate to glorify: Dhuoda’s father-in-law, William of Toulouse. He became a follower of Benedict of Aniane and left the world to enter his own foundation of Gellone. A later hagiographer inserted a section praising his holiness into Arbeo’s life of Benedict.110 Yet Dhuoda mentions him only as one of the kinsmen that her son should pray for.111 Some Carolingian nobles did continue to celebrate family saints and acquire relics, and many still patronised cult sites. The piety of Eberhard of Friuli and his family, for example, combined such ‘traditional’ practices as relic collection and founding a monastery (Cysoing) with a new emphasis on moral uplift through learning, including the patronage of the controversial theologian Gottschalk.112 The evidence of Einhard, Nithard and Dhuoda, however, suggests that traditional methods of ‘selfsanctiication’ may have lost some of the political advantages they possessed in the seventh and early eighth centuries.113 One reason may have been that the efective use of these techniques had become more diicult. Carolingian rulers imposed restrictions on the creation of new saints and, as Einhard’s example shows, acquiring good-quality relics required hard work and contacts at the highest levels.114 The royal family patronised the most prestigious old cult centres 107 109 111

112 113

114

Nithard 4:5, pp. 47–8. 108 Nelson, ‘Public Histories’, pp. 279–81. MGH Poet. iii, p. 310. 110 VB 30, pp. 211–13. LM 10:5, p. 226. There may possibly be another reason for this reticence. The chapter in the Vita Benedicti refers to the ‘vast amounts of gold and silver’ that William gave Benedict. If this information is authentic, could this perhaps explain why Dhuoda appears to be so troubled with debts (ibid. 10:4, p. 226)? See Kershaw, ‘Eberhard’. On the late Merovingian situation, see Fouracre, ‘Origins of the Carolingian attempt’, pp. 151–61. Ibid., p. 162.

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Imagining power and took control of many family monasteries. Royal favour may have seemed an easier way to acquire prestige: even Einhard may have found his connections to Charlemagne and Louis the Pious more useful than those to Marcellinus and Peter. T he Carol ing i an

NOBILIS

If Carolingian nobles sought ‘self-sanctiication’ less actively than their Merovingian predecessors, was this also due to a revived classical tradition in which nobility and virtue automatically went together? There is little evidence of this. Hagiography continued to use topoi derived from the patristic fusion of social and moral nobility.115 Yet in the 820s, Carolingian bishops created a new episcopal model, which said nothing about the need for a bishop to be noble, instead stressing values such as culture, erudition and an exemplary way of life.116 What of the secular nobilis? Building on earlier studies, I want to examine the sources’ use of the word nobilis and cognates, focusing speciically on its use to describe non-royal laymen.117 Régine Le Jan shows that nobilis was little used in Neustrian charters until the tenth century.118 Carolingian epic poetry also uses the term relatively infrequently, despite its many portrayals of elite men. Abbo’s poem on the siege of Paris describes several churchmen as behaving nobly, but only one layman, the future king Odo.119 Waltharius uses ‘noble’ only twice (to describe Hagan and Hiltgund),120 and there are also only two uses by Ermoldus Nigellus.121 The use of nobilis is more common in epitaphs, but there are surprising exceptions, such as the epitaphs of Eggihard and Gerald, Charlemagne’s brother-in-law.122 Instead Eggihard is described as ‘sprung from famous stock’, a phrase showing high birth without such strong moral connotations as nobilis.123 In contrast, Sedulius’ poems to and about Eberhard of Friuli call him noble, and Sedulius connects together literal and igurative 115 116

117 118

119 120 121

122

See for example Poulin, L’Idéal, pp. 45–8, Goetz, ‘Nobilis’, pp. 185–7. Stefen Patzold, ‘Redéiner l’oice épiscopal: Les Evêques francs face à la crise des années 820– 830’, in François Bougard, Laurent Feller and Régine Le Jan (eds.), Les Elites au haut moyen âge: Crises et renouvellements, Collection haut moyen âge 1 (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 337–59. Nelson, ‘Nobility’; Goetz, ‘Nobilis’. Régine Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Domnus, illuster, nobilis: Les Mutations du pouvoir au xe siècle’, in Michel Sot (ed.), Haut moyen âge: Culture, éducation et société, études ofertes à Pierre Riché (Paris, 1990), pp. 439–49. Abbo, ii:205 (Abbot Ebolus); ii:336, 488 (Abbot Anschericus); i:246, ii:30, 616 (Odo). Waltharius, 27, 37. In honorem, 1262 (Lambert, count of Nantes); 1650–1 (Murman laments the decline of the ‘noble reputation’ of the Bretons’ ancestors). MGH Poet. i, pp. 109, 114. 123 Ibid., p. 109, 3: ‘inclita stirpe satus’.

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The Carolingian nobilis nobility in a poem on Eberhard’s newborn son. The baby is described as ‘famous [inclitus] nobility, shining hope, the image of his father’,124 and Sedulius tells him ‘to begin nobly to learn excellent conduct’.125 Yet this is restrained in contrast to the rhetoric of Sedulius’ poem to a royal abbess, Bertha, the daughter of Lothar I and Ermengard: That mother was noble and a blessed ruler, Noble in birth and noble in faith, Noble, she shone in holy conduct, Noble in feeling and in outspoken piety … Whose nobility is made clear in you, most excellent Bertha, In manners and character and good deeds.126

Authors of narrative works difer markedly in how they use the term nobilis. It could be used simply to denote social status, seemingly with no moral overtones: the Royal Frankish Annals, the Annales mettenses priores and the Astronomer all refer to nobiles involved in conspiracies or rebellions.127 Thegan is obsessed with nobility, but it seems essentially a matter of birth to him, not behaviour: people are noble, rather than acting nobly. Stefen Patzold argues that this is a reaction to the episcopal model proposed by the Council of Paris of 829, which removed the signiicance of birth.128 The Astronomer frequently uses nobilis and its cognates, but focuses mainly on the noble behaviour of royalty.129 In contrast, Nithard emphasises the noble behaviour not only of kings, but also laymen; nobility here is an active quality.130 Other references to such ‘noble’ behaviour by non-royal laymen that I have found are considerably later. Regino of Prüm, for example, describes how the Breton dux Vurfand was ‘illustrious by descent among his people, but more illustrious by the nobility of his proved strength’, and has him declare when facing a dangerous battle: ‘It is better to die nobly than to save one’s life shamefully.’131 The Bavarian continuation of the Fulda annals recounts

124 125 126

127 128 129

130 131

Sedulius, Carmen ii:38, p. 202, 17. Ibid., 23. Carmen ii:78, p. 228, 5–8, 23–4: ‘Nobilis illa fuit mater rectrixque beata, / Nobilis in genere, nobilis atque ide, / Nobilis in sanctis rutilibat moribus illa, / Nobilis in sensu proloquioque pio … Cuius nobilitas in vobis, optima Berta, / Claret in exemplis, moribus atque bonis.’ ARF 801, 817, pp. 114, 148; AMP 748, p. 40; Astronomer 6, p. 302. Patzold, ‘Redéiner’, pp. 350–3. See for example Astronomer 2, p. 288 (Charlemagne crossing the Alps); 64, p. 554 (Drogo burying Louis). Nelson, ‘Nobility’, pp. 48–51; Nithard 2:4, 3:6, pp. 16, 38. Regino 874, p. 108: ‘Erat hic Vurfandus genere inter suos clarus sed virtutum experimentis nobilitate clarior.’; ibid., p. 107.

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Imagining power how the leading Bavarians and Count Liutpold fought the Huns: ‘ighting nobly, but triumphing more nobly still’.132 There are similar contrasts in the lay mirrors’ use of nobilis. Paulinus and Jonas make relatively little use of the term and normally keep its secular and Christian meanings distinct. Secular nobility is an accepted fact: Jonas wonders why people seek incestuous marriage: ‘which gives the nod to sin and brands [denotatur] the nobility of worldly dignity with infamy. Brands, I say, since those who are joined by such a marriage, are denobled [denobilitatur] and the sons who are born from such a marriage, according to the censure of human laws, are not admitted to inheritance.’133 Yet Jonas does not always see such nobility positively: he complains about ‘some powerful men and certain noble matrons’ who neglect the spiritual welfare of their subordinates.134 Moral nobility, in contrast, is often seen as intrinsic to all humans. Paulinus comments: ‘Let us preserve the nobility of his [Jesus’] image in us’135 while Jonas sees ‘ignobility’ resulting for all from the fall of Adam.136 Despite frequent borrowing from patristic sources, these writers seldom follow them in linking social status to moral nobility. One exception is Paulinus’ comment to Eric: ‘And do not permit the nobility of your spirit, which I know to be most excellent in you, to be changed from the love of God … by any ambition for worldly desires.’137 Alcuin makes even fewer uses of nobilis in his mirror, although in some letters to kings and women he does link noble birth and noble behaviour. He urges Gundrada (Charlemagne’s cousin), for example, to ‘be an example of all goodness to the other virgins in the palace … may they be noble in character, just as they are noble by their parents’,138 and addresses Charlemagne’s son Pippin: ‘O noblest young man, whom it beits to be of noble character’.139 In contrast, Alcuin wants Osbert, the former patricius of Mercia, to be an ‘example of nobility of character’, but makes no reference to Osbert’s nobility of birth.140 Dhuoda, however, uses the idea of nobility frequently, addressing William as ‘noble boy’ in passages of particular moral fervour.141 She also explicitly links such status with morality, warning William: ‘What use, my son, is noble blood, if the body is corrupted by injustice, descending into corruption, so that it may mourn forever?’142 Court life, in 132 135 137 139

140

AF(B) 900, p. 135. 133 DIL 2:8, col. 184. 134 See above, p. 117. LE 8, col. 204. 136 DIL 1:1, col. 125. LE 4, col. 200. 138 Alcuin, Epistola 241, p. 386. Ibid. 29, p. 71. Cf. Ibid. 30 (Ethelred; p. 71), 119 (Pippin the Younger; p. 174), 123 (Coenwulf; pp. 180–1), 217 (Charles the Younger; p. 361). Ibid. 122, p. 180. 141 Nelson, ‘Nobility’, pp. 47–50. 142 LM 4:8, p. 156.

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Conclusion contrast, provides a chance to learn from great men: ‘the example of greater lords and the best leaders ought to be followed by great men and the smallest’.143 Although Dhuoda stresses that merit is not linked to the social order, she sees the example of lesser men useful mainly as showing mutual love.144 Thus Dhuoda and Nithard have a clear sense that noble laymen should display moral nobility, an idea noticeably less prominent among clerical authors in the same genres. Nithard, however, also produced what was probably the most pessimistic Carolingian text on the actual behaviour of lay noblemen.145 This is not necessarily inconsistent: Alexander Murray argues for a paradoxical attitude in the central Middle Ages, in which noblemen were generally seen as being worse Christians than non-nobles, precisely because more was expected of them morally.146 Conclusion Peter Brown sees an ‘acute concern with the relation between power and merit’ as characteristic of both Gregory of Tours and Gregory the Great;147 in contrast, Carolingian moralists wrote relatively few explicit comments about the links between lay power and virtue. Most commonly, the social hierarchy was simply taken for granted, allowing evil behaviour on the part of nobles and potentes to be denounced without raising any wider social issues. Attempts to create theories linking nobility and virtue were tentative. Carolingian attempts at moral renewal of the secular world focused on making the lay elite into exemplary igures, but religious leaders simultaneously developed an episcopal model that denied signiicance to noble birth. Rather of Verona in the tenth century went further, making the explicit claim that, like Sallust, he thought the true source of nobility was oneself, rather than one’s ancestors.148 The role of the lay nobility themselves in such developments can only be glimpsed in passing, but is intriguing. They should not simply be seen as passive recipients of others’ ideas, but instead as participants in a continuing dialogue on suitable lay behaviour.149 Nithard and Dhuoda, in 143

144 146 147 148

149

Ibid. 3:10, p. 108: ‘maiorum seniorumque atque optimatum ducum cum minimis exempla sequi debere magnatis’. Ibid., p. 116. 145 Airlie, ‘World’, p. 51. Alexander Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1978), pp. 331–7. Peter Brown, ‘The study of elites in late antiquity’, Arethusa 33 (2000), 321–46, at p. 337. Rather of Verona, Qualitatis coniectura cuiusdam, Ratherii utique Veronensis, ed. Peter L. D. Reid, in Ratherii Veronensis opera minora, CCCM 46 (Turnhout, 1976), pp. 117–32, c. 3, at p. 118. Many of the papers in Wormald and Nelson, Lay Intellectuals give a clear sense of this dialogue.

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Imagining power particular, suggest that when lay nobles expressed their own moral prestige, they did not necessarily do so via the traditional forms of ‘noble self-sanctiication’. Instead, their use of the term nobilis hints at a more secular linking of birth and virtue; perhaps, in a time when bishops no longer justiied their position by their high social origins, lay people felt a new need to articulate this traditional equation themselves.

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Chapter 5

C ENT RA L POWER

As in most western societies until recently, in the Carolingian period there was a close link between the ruler, the ‘state’ apparatus and the nobility.1 A variety of secular oice-holders are visible in Carolingian sources, sometimes with overlapping roles.2 For example, Louis the Pious’ Legationis capitulum from around 826 mentions missi, comites, advocati, vicedomini, vicarii, centenarii and scabini.3 The highest secular oices were efectively reserved for noblemen, unlike some other medieval societies.4 Closeness to the ruler and attendance at court were thus key sources of noble power. Lupus of Ferrières told Charles the Bald in around 843: ‘do not fear the potentes, whom you made yourself and whom you can bring low when you wish’.5 This was undoubtedly an exaggeration, but royal favour was essential for real prominence and there was keen competition for it.6 The rewards included not only oice, but also more tangible gains: Charlemagne’s courtiers shared in the booty after the defeat of the Avars, for example.7 Einhard’s letters show the variety of royal favours that a prominent courtier might seek both for himself and his friends, including exemption from paying the heribannus (a ine for not attending the host when summoned), grants of beneices and their retention in times 1

2

3 4 5 6

7

On the concept of the state in the early Middle Ages, with a focus on the Carolingian period, see Stuart Airlie, Walter Pohl, and Helmut Reimitz (eds.), Staat im Frühmittelalter, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 11 (Vienna, 2006); Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (eds.), Der frühmittelalterliche Staat: Europäische Perspektiven (Vienna, 2009) Jennifer R. Davis, ‘A pattern for power: Charlemagne’s delegation of judicial responsibilities’, in Davis and McCormick, Long Morning, pp. 235–46. MGH Cap. i:152, p. 310. See below, p. 149 on social origins. Lupus, Epistola 31,Vol. i, p. 144. Stuart Airlie, ‘The aristocracy’, in McKitterick, New Cambridge Medieval History (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 431–50, at pp. 433–7, Innes, State, p. 220. See Chapter 3, p. 106.

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Central power of political turmoil.8 In return, such courtiers had a duty to give ‘aid and counsel’ to the ruler.9 The predominance of nobles at court and in oicial positions had important implications for their moral responsibilities. There was a long tradition of Christian thought on such topics, dating back to the Bible’s view of secular authority as divinely ordained, with its models of ideal courtiers and oicials.10 In this chapter I will examine texts discussing moral issues surrounding three key forms of this centrally derived power. The irst form is that of the moral expectations surrounding the royal court itself. The second is the role of the count, the most frequently mentioned secular oicial, whose tasks included local civil and military administration, the maintenance of public order and judicial functions. The third is the moral demands made of the secular justice system and particularly of the key legal oicer, the judge.11 Courtie r s There is a long tradition of scholarship on early medieval courts as intellectual centres and prosopographical studies of their personnel, but the last twenty-ive years have seen a new kind of scholarship develop, which has emphasised far more the role of the courts as political centres and in shaping noble culture.12 As a result, we now have a better sense both of the history of Carolingian courts and their multiple functions. The court became increasingly important as a political and social centre from the last quarter of the eighth century.13 By the end of Charlemagne’s reign, Aachen was a large, carefully designed palace complex, a place for shared rituals and social interaction, with its own rhythms and routines 8

9 10

11 12

13

Einhard, Epistolae 23, p. 121 (exemption from heribannus); 27–9, pp. 123–4, 126–7 (retention of beneices); 30, 34, pp. 124, 126–7 (grants of beneices). Cf. Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’, pp. 211–15. Charles E. Odegaard, ‘Carolingian oaths of idelity’, Speculum 16 (1941), 284–96, at pp. 292–6. On the inluence of Old Testament models of judges, see below, p. 166. On the use of biblical images of the courtier (especially Haman, Joseph and Daniel) in Carolingian texts, see Geneviève Bührer-Thierry,‘Le Conseiller du roi: Les Ecrivains carolingiens et la tradition biblique’, Médiévales 12 (1987), 111–23 and below, p. 145. On the varied meanings of iudex see Chapter 1, p. 5. See in particular Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’; Stuart Airlie, ‘Bonds of power and bonds of association in the court circle of Louis the Pious’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 191– 204; Althof, Verwandte; Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness. Older traditions of court research are seen in, for example, Wilhelm Lüders, ‘Capella: Die Hofkapelle der Karolinger. Bis zum Tode Karls des Großen’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 2 (1909), 1–100; Reto R. Bezzola, Les Origines et la formation de la littérature courtoise en Occident (500–1200). Première partie: La Tradition impériale de la in de l’antiquité au xIe siècle, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes 286 (Paris, 1944); Donald A. Bullough, ‘Aula renovata: The Carolingian court before the Aachen palace’, Proceedings of the British Academy 71 (1985), 267–301. Innes, State, pp. 197–8.

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Courtiers and with a camaraderie among the aulici (courtiers).14 This ‘courtly society’ was maintained not only by men, but also by women, with the queen playing a particular role in setting its tone.15 The multifaceted importance of royal courts endured until late in the ninth century, even as the locations of such courts changed with the changing boundaries of kingdoms. In the 890s violence broke out in Lotharingia and the Main area because a few igures were monopolising contacts with political centres, so that other nobles were no longer able to get royal access.16 The decline of the last Carolingian rulers was mirrored in the decline of their courts; Janet Nelson says of western Francia under Charles the Simple: ‘The palace had ceased to function as a junction-box in the circuit of power.’17 Yet as Stuart Airlie points out, post-Carolingian networks of power were themselves formed at Carolingian courts.18 The court as moral problem? I will start with general views on court morality, before moving on to the speciic issue of lay courtiers giving counsel. Later in the Middle Ages, moral discussions of courts were largely hostile and court criticism became an accepted genre.19 Such works saw the court as turbulent and chaotic, and full of the lawless and proud. Above all, there was criticism of the moral corruption involved in the scramble for power at court. One could not stay there and remain clean. Although the focus was on the behaviour of court clergy, lay courtiers were also condemned for the same faults.20 Some scholars have seen this genre of court criticism as beginning in the ninth century, but this ignores a key diference.21 Unlike the purely negative views held by many later writers, the starting point for all Carolingian texts was the serious expectation that the court would be the moral centre of the realm.22 The harshest Carolingian critics of 14

15 17 18

19

20 22

Stuart Airlie, ‘The palace of memory: The Carolingian court as political centre’, in Sarah Rees Jones, Richard Marks and A. J. Minnis (eds.), Courts and Regions in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 1–20; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Was Charlemagne’s court a courtly society?’, in Cubitt, Court Culture, pp. 39–57. Nelson, ‘Gendering courts’. 16 Innes, State, pp. 224–31. Nelson, Charles the Bald, p. 260. Stuart Airlie, ‘Semper ideles? Loyauté envers les Carolingiens comme constituant de l’identité aristocratique’, in Le Jan, Royauté, pp. 129–43, at pp. 141–3. Thomas Szabó, ‘Der mittelalterliche Hof zwischen Kritik und Idealisierung’, in Josef Fleckenstein (ed.), Curialitas: Studien zu Grundfragen der höisch-ritterlichen Kultur, Veröfentlichungen des MaxPlanck-Instituts für Geschichte 100 (Göttingen, 1990), pp. 350–91. Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, pp. 54–66. 21 Szabó, ‘Der mittelalterliche Hof ’, pp. 351–2. Nelson, ‘Charlemagne’s court’, p. 42.

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Central power courts still kept a vision of the good court; indeed, as Stuart Airlie points out, the criticism itself demonstrates the strength of the moral ideal.23 Reform of the court was often seen as a necessary step towards reform of the kingdom as a whole: Hincmar’s De ordine palatii claimed that correct administration of the ‘sacred palace’ could contribute to the ‘restoration of the honour and the peace of the church and the kingdom’.24 Hincmar was particularly concerned to ensure wide access to court, wanting court oicials to be chosen from across the regions.25 When Carloman wanted to deal with abuses in Francia in 884, he similarly started his reform capitulary with several chapters on the palace.26 One of the main reasons for the moral importance of the Frankish court was its role in educating elite laymen. Hincmar, for example, described it as a ‘school’ where one learnt discipline, which included morally and socially correct behaviour.27 Dhuoda is clear that William can learn virtue at court not just from clerics, but from the example of secular potentes, and that such virtue will in turn help him to rise further in the world.28 Several other texts also show the royal court providing both a moral and practical education for young noblemen.29 The moral expectations that Carolingian reformers had about courtiers are most often seen negatively, in the descriptions of those who succumbed to wickedness. Yet there are also positive visions of the court, especially in poetry. Many Carolingian poems include set-piece scenes of court life; the emphasis, whether in descriptions of hunts, processions or religious ceremonies, is on harmonious order, with noble courtiers framed in supporting roles around the royal family. Ermoldus Nigellus, for example, carefully places references to the courtiers Gerung, Matfrid of Orléans and Hugh of Tours in his description of the procession of Louis the Pious to the baptism of the Danish king Herold in 826.30 The same concern for hierarchy is visible in Notker’s description of Louis the Pious’ gifts to his household on Good Friday.31 23 24 25 26 27

28 30

Airlie, ‘Palace of memory’, pp. 7–8. De ordine 1, p. 34: ‘ad reerectionem honoris et pacis ecclesiae ac regni’. Ibid. 18, p. 66. Karolomanni capitulare Vernense, MGH Cap. ii.281, p. 372, cc. 1–2. Quierzy letter c. 12, p. 420: ‘domus regis scola dicitur, id est disciplina, quia non tantum scolastici, id est disciplinati et bene correcti, sunt, sicut alii, sed potius ipsa scola, quae interpretatur disciplina, id est correctio, dicitur, quae alios habitu, incessu, verbo et actu atque totius bonitatis continentia corrigant.’ (‘The king’s dwelling is called a school, that is instruction, not only because scholars are there, that is the instructed and well-corrected, as well as others. Rather it itself [the court] is called a school, which means instruction, that is correction, things which correct the others in bearing, gait, word and act and in the self-control of all goodness.) LM 3:9–11, pp. 106–22. 29 Innes, ‘Place of discipline’. In honorem, 2290–313. 31 Notker 2:21, pp. 91–2.

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Courtiers If the ordered and harmonious community was the ideal of court life, the opposite of this was disorder and self-interest.There are no complaints about excessive drinking at Carolingian courts, although poets show the courts of both the Breton king Murman and Attila as marked by shameful over-indulgence.32 Repeated alarms about sexual sins at Frankish courts focus mainly on the alleged misconduct of royal women, with many accusations probably politically motivated.33 Alcuin had worried that his pupil Fredegisus might be led astray by the ‘crowned doves’ of the palace at Aachen (presumably Charlemagne’s daughters);34 Dhuoda, however, forty years later, felt no particular need to warn William about such dangers, even though the only layman ever speciically accused of sexual crimes at court was her husband Bernard.35 Yet a rather diferent picture of court life is given in a capitulary, dating perhaps from 820, on discipline in the palace at Aachen. Many buildings in Aachen had to be searched for prostitutes; we also get a description of men brawling unchecked in the palace.36 The unprecedented demands in this capitulary probably represent a temporary clampdown on previously tolerated behaviour. While the sources say relatively little about the sexual sins of male courtiers, they more have more to say about other ofences. Religious men at court were the most likely to be accused of evil behaviour. Notker’s Gesta Karoli is full of rapacious palace clerics seeking their own advancement;37 such men are already visible, bound for hell, in the Visio Wettini of the early 820s.38 Hincmar, meanwhile, complained that the palace clerics allowed their followers to commit robbery.39 32 33

34 35

36

37 38

39

See Chapter 7, p. 239. See Nelson, ‘Monstrous regiment’, pp. 55–60 on accusations against Charlemagne’s daughters; Ward, ‘Agobard’ on Judith; MacLean, Kingship, pp. 170–91 on Richgardis; and Timothy Reuter, ‘Sex, lies and oath-helpers: The trial of Queen Uota’, in Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 217–30 on Uota. Alcuin, Epistola 244, p. 392. EA 2:8, col. 1622. I disagree with M. A. Claussen, ‘Fathers of power and mothers of authority: Dhuoda and the Liber manualis’, French Historical Studies 19 (1996), 785–809, at pp. 805–7, who suggests that Dhuoda’s reference to Joseph’s chastity (LM 3:3, p. 90) is a veiled dig at her husband’s sexual behaviour. Dhuoda often mentions Joseph as an example of virtue, whether of ilial devotion, advice-giving or faith in aliction (LM 3:3, 3:5, 5:7, pp. 90–2, 98, 176). Joseph was also a common model of a courtier for other authors: see Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, pp. 87–95. Capitulare de disciplina palatii Aquisgranensis, MGH Cap. i:146, p. 298, cc. 1–2, 5. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Aachen as a place of power’, in Mayke de Jong and Frans Theuws (eds.), Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, Transformation of the Roman World 6 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 217–41, at pp. 238–9 provides a translation of this text. See for example Notker 1:4–6, pp. 5–9. Visio Wettini, 328–34. Cf. Episcoporum ad Hludowicum imperatorem relatio 829, MGH Cap. ii:196, p. 39, c. 12; Lupus, Epistola 16,Vol. i, p. 96. Hincmar, Epistola 127, pp. 66–7.

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Central power In contrast, advancement at court for laymen could be seen positively: Agobard claimed that Matfrid’s friendship with the emperor was Godgiven.40 It is taken for granted in Waltharius that Attila’s favour, combined with their own talents, leads to Hagan,Walter and Hildegund gaining key roles at court; similarly Dhuoda reminds William that it is as Bernard’s son that he has access to those of the highest status.41 In Hincmar’s letter to Louis the Stammerer, he contrasts the orderly behaviour of magnates on the deaths of Pippin and Charlemagne with the scramble of the Frankish magnates for honores after Louis the Pious’ death, with men ‘struggling more about their greed, than about the salvation of themselves and their seniores, and the peace of the people and holy church’.42 Part of Hincmar’s aim in this letter is advising how stability could be achieved again, at a time when he alleged that payment was now required to gain or retain honores.43 Hincmar is unusual in criticising lay courtiers collectively, but individual laymen were sometimes strongly criticised. Allegations often centred on their wrongful gaining of power, or their misuse of power. Regino says that Zwentibold was opposed by his magnates: ‘since ordering the business of the kingdom with women and the more ignoble [mulieres et ignobiliores], he threw out the more honest and nobler and despoiled their honores and dignities’.44 Hincmar complained about Boso’s advance by means of two advantageous marriages: that of his sister to Charles the Bald and his own to Louis II’s daughter Ermengard. The latter marriage was, Hincmar said, achieved by ‘a wicked plot’.45 Nithard was particularly hostile to prominent courtiers who he claimed lacked public-spiritedness. Bernard of Septimania ‘abused the commonwealth [res publica] imprudently’, while Adalard the seneschal ‘regarding public usefulness less, aimed to please everyone’.46 Nithard comments on Hugo, Lambert and Matfrid: ‘since each one of them used to seek his own things, inwardly they neglected the commonwealth [res publica]’; his view that Adalbert of Metz stirred up dissension was shared by the Fulda annalist.47 Several court favourites were later found guilty of treason, including Eggidio, called ‘irst among the king’s friends’ in 817, and Ernest, ‘the chief among all his leading men [optimates]’ in 861.48Agobard alleged that Wala was among courtiers denying him proper access to

40 42 43 44 46 48

De iniusticiis, p. 227. 41 Waltharius, 97–115; LM 3:2, p. 88. Novi regis 2:4, cols. 985–6. Ibid. 8, col. 987. Cf. Capitula in Synodo apud S. Macram, PL 125, cols. 1084–6, c. viii. Regino 900, p. 148. 45 AB 869, 876, pp. 107, 128. Nithard 1:3, 4:6, pp. 3, 49. 47 Ibid. 1:4, p. 6. On Adalbert see ibid. 2:7, p. 21; AF 841, p. 32. ARF 817, p. 148; AF 861, p. 55.

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Courtiers Louis the Pious.49 He also complained about ‘perverse factions’ at court,50 and accused Matfrid of obstructing justice at the palace court.51 The greatest criticism was directed at Dhuoda’s husband, Bernard of Septimania, complaining of his ‘thirst for power’, arrogance and treachery.52 Paschasius Radbertus went even further, claiming that Bernard made the court a place of sorcery, soothsaying and debauchery.53 Bernard broke treaties, created disorder and sowed family dissension.54 He lived by plundering.55 Paschasius, indeed, saw Bernard as a threat to the whole power system, who planned to secure his power by murdering Louis the Pious, his sons, and also magnates and ‘lords of the land’.56 Paschasius also repeatedly claims that under Bernard’s inluence royal favour and honours were taken from the good and given to the unworthy: The highest were rejected, the most distinguished thrown down, the wicked collected, the emptiest honoured, the wicked introduced.57 [Bernard] had the most holy emperor so deluded by his deceptions that he banished from secret and private conversation, from familiarity and counsel, from faith, from honores and from all fellowship of previous life all those whom either he or his great father the emperor had nourished.58

The easiest way to acquire or retain honores had become to do what Bernard wanted. As a result, everything became corrupted: ‘no one might acquire power, no one honour, no one possessions, without crime or without ruin of others as the cost’.59 This was the nightmare reverse of Dhuoda’s telling William to follow the example of ‘greater men, lords and the greatest duces’.60 What if, as Paschasius claimed, a great courtier like William’s father set only an example of evil? Yet despite many denunciations of individual lay courtiers, relatively few Carolingian moralists saw the court as irretrievably broken, with the possible exception of Nithard.61 Even Paschasius regarded the state of the court under Bernard as an aberration, with his hero, Wala, able to restore ‘honesty’ to the palace.62 Hincmar in De ordine palatii stresses that he is 49 51

52 53 55 57

58

59 61 62

Agobard, De baptismo, p. 115. 50 Agobard, Liber apologeticus, i:1, p. 309. De iniusticiis, p. 226. On the frequent Carolingian concerns about such obstruction of justice, see below, pp. 164–6. AB 844, p. 30; Astronomer 44, p. 456; Nithard 2:5, pp. 17–18. EA 2:8, col. 1617. 54 Ibid. 2:7, col. 1615. Ibid. 2:15, col. 1633. 56 Ibid. 2:8, 2:10, cols. 1617, 1622. Ibid. 2:8, col. 1617: ‘repelluntur summi, dejiciuntur eximii, colliguntur improbi, honorantur vanissimi, et introducuntur scelesti’. Ibid. 2:9, col. 1619: ‘eo quod sacratissimum Augustum sic haberet suis delusum praestigiis ut omnes repelleret, quos aut ipse, aut magnus pater ejus imperator nutrierat a secreto, a colloquio, a familiaritate et consilio, a idei ide, ab honoribus, et ab omni consortio prioris vitae’. Ibid. 2:7, col. 1615. 60 LM 3:10, p. 108. On Nithard’s bleak vision of lay noblemen, see Airlie, ‘World’, pp. 67–71. EA 2:10, col. 1625.

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Central power referring back to his own experiences and to Adalard’s: the ordered and morally upright court has for him a previously achieved reality that can be recovered.63 Courts and lay courtiers could be corrupted; that was not, however, their natural state. Counsel-giving Carolingian capitularies increasingly stressed the role of those close to the king in giving him counsel.64 Scholars have debated whether advicegiving was more a duty than a right for magnates, but its symbolic importance is clear.65 Jean Devisse shows how references to the giving of ‘aid and counsel’ are linked in texts with respect for law.66 In contrast, Alcuin blamed violent behaviour in Tours on the ‘untaught crowd [vulgus indoctum], who are always accustomed to do unsuitable things without counsel’, and Paschasius claimed that Bernard of Septimania ‘destroyed counsel’.67 In the ninth century particularly important magnates might be called consiliarii.68 The sources frequently show the rulers taking counsel about key decisions, while men such as Alcuin and Hincmar spent much time giving advice, whether requested or not. In De ordine palatii, Hincmar sees part of the role of the apocrisarius (archchaplain) as giving spiritual advice both to courtiers who ask for it and to those who are simply felt to ‘need’ it.69 It was often thought that rulers should seek counsel from many people rather than just one;70 but moralists normally wanted to limit those who should give counsel. The giving of counsel was strongly gendered, for example, and royal women are often shown as giving bad counsel: the Annales mettenses priores blames Tassilo’s wife for his resistance to Charlemagne,71 while opponents of Louis the Pious stressed Judith’s inluence over him.72 Such comments were a long-established way of criticising powerful men.73 63 64

65

66 67 68 69 70 71 73

De ordine 12, 37, pp. 54, 96. Jean Devisse, ‘Essai sur l’histoire d’une expression qui a fait fortune: Consilium et auxilium au ixe siècle’, Le moyen âge 74 (1968), 179–205. Gerd Althof , ‘Colloquium familiare – colloquium secretum – colloquium publicum: Beratung im politischen Leben des früheren Mittelalters’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 24 (1990), 145–67, at pp. 147–9. Devisse, ‘Consilium et auxilium’, p. 191. Alcuin, Epistola 249, p. 403; EA 2:7, col. 1615. Brunner, Oppositionelle Gruppen, p. 23; MacLean, Kingship, pp. 182–5. De ordine 20, p. 70. Bührer-Thierry, ‘Conseiller du roi’, pp. 119–21; Novi regis 10, col. 990. McKitterick, Charlemagne, p. 125. 72 Ward, ‘Agobard’. Kate Cooper,‘Insinuations of womanly inluence: An aspect of the Christianization of the Roman aristocracy’, Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992), 150–64.

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Courtiers Sedulius Scottus, however, praised queens who gave wise counsel to their husbands and Alcuin hoped that the consecrated woman Gundrada (Charlemagne’s cousin) might be ‘prudent in counsel’ at court.74 Thegan alleged that Lothar I killed Bernard of Septimania’s sister Gerberga ‘by the judgement of the wives of his impious counsellors’, in order to stress the iniquity of the act,75 yet Dhuoda saw no moral problem in giving advice both to William and, indirectly, to his fellows at court.76 Most often, however, it was expected that counsellors would be male, and there was sometimes a preference for older men. Alcuin wanted Pippin of Italy to use ‘the council of old men and the service of young men’.77 Both Jonas and Hincmar repeated Pseudo-Cyprian’s advice that the good king should have ‘old and wise and sober counsellors’.78 Dhuoda, however, insisted that godly young men could also give good advice.79 Perhaps more importantly, counsellors were expected to come from the elite. Ermoldus shows Louis the Pious ‘in the ancient way’ consulting ‘those chosen from the people, or the summits of the kingdom’ when considering an expedition to Barcelona.80 Hincmar, in De ordine palatii, describes a distinction between greater men, who participated fully in assembly discussions, and lesser men, who did not; he also argued for the training of palace oicials as advisers.81 Thegan was scathing about the low-born Ebbo counselling kings.82 Only the recipients of divine messages might be allowed to bypass such restrictions: typical early medieval visionaries were often of relatively low status, such as the poor women of Laon, even if their accounts were then mediated and adapted by powerful men before reaching rulers.83 Those who were chosen to advise rulers had important moral responsibilities. Alcuin told Count Roger: ‘I wish that you … will work salvation for your soul … in good counsel, which helps the lord emperor and the kingdom of the Franks achieve salvation and prosperity.’84 Paschasius blamed disasters in the kingdom on a refusal to take Wala’s advice: ‘Destruction of churches, misfortunes of the poor, oppressions of the 74 75 76 77 78 79 81 82

83 84

LRC 5, pp. 34–7; Alcuin, Epistola 241, p. 387. On Gundrada see Nelson, ‘Gendering courts’, p. 191. Thegan 52, p. 244; on this see de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 200–1. On Dhuoda as courtier and counsellor, see LM 10:6, p. 228; Nelson, ‘Dhuoda’, pp. 118–20. Alcuin, Epistola 119, p. 174. Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 51, quoted by DIR 3, p. 188; De regis 2, col. 835. LM 3:5, p. 98. 80 In honorem, 148: ‘electos populi, seu culmina regni’. De ordine 29, 32, pp. 82–4, 88–90. Thegan 44, p. 236. On the political background to this invective see de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 76–9. Ibid., p. 136. On the Visio cuiusdam pauperculae mulieri see Chapter 2, p. 46. Alcuin, Epistola 224, p. 367.

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Central power rich, invasions of barbarians, slaughter of the people, wars of the proud, plots of all … all these things happened since he was spurned, he was not listened to.’85 Mirrors for princes frequently demand that rulers have good counsellors and avoid evil ones.86 Some give details of the requirements for good counsellors. Sedulius wanted ‘pious, continent and religious men who love their prince … who neither cheat nor deceive and who never beguile, being always truthful, sober, prudent and faithful to their prince in all things’.87 Hincmar, meanwhile, cited Ambrose’s ideals: Such then, ought he to be who gives counsel to another, in order that he may ofer himself as a model [forma] to others in good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in seriousness … He must have nothing cloudy [nebulosus], nothing deceitful, nothing fabricated [fabulosus], nothing simulated about him, to disprove his life and character … We lee and turn away from him whom we consult if he should be of doubtful faithfulness and desirous of money, so that his view can be changed for a price.88

Hincmar also follows Ambrose in comparing men who are able to give good counsel but reluctant to, as being like someone who shuts up a spring of water.89 The same rhetoric of the virtuous counsellor is also visible in capitularies. The agreement between Charles the Bald and Louis the German made at Douzy in 865 wanted their ideles to give them aid and counsel with ‘pure heart and good conscience and unfeigned faith’, even as the two rulers contemplated dividing up their nephew Lothar II’s kingdom.90 Such ‘pure’ counsel was often linked to harmony within the elite. Louis the Pious’ bishops in 829 demanded not only that his counsellors should be of good reputation, but that they should show ‘mutual love’.91 Hincmar warned Louis the Stammerer that discord between his ideles made them afraid to ofer good advice to him.92 Discord between counsellors raised the particular spectre of impure motives behind their advice-giving. Charlemagne allegedly demanded that those who repeatedly considered their own interests more than 85

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89 90 91 92

EA 2:8, col. 1619: ‘Ecclesiarum eversiones, calamitates pauperum, divitum oppressiones, barbarorum incursiones, caedes vulgi, bella superbientium, insidias universorum … quia illo spreto, cum non est auditus, haec omnia contigerunt.’ Brunner, Oppositionelle Gruppen, p. 23. 87 LRC 6, p. 40. De regis 4, col. 837; and Ad episcopos 9, col. 1013, quoting Ambrose, De oiciis ii:17; see Ambrose, De oiciis, ed. Maurice Testard, CCSL 15 (Turnhout, 2000), p. 128. De regis 4, col. 838; and Ad episcopos 9, col. 1013, quoting Ambrose, De oiciis ii:12, p. 118. Hludowici et Karoli pactum Tusiacense 865, MGH Cap. ii:244, p. 166, c. 5 (quoting 1 Timothy 1:5). Episcoporum ad Hludowicum imperatorem relatio 829, MGH Cap. ii:196, p. 49, c. 59. Novi regis 8, col. 988.

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Courtiers common ones should be removed as counsellors.93 Seventy years later, Hincmar was equally concerned that advisers should put nothing before the kingdom’s interests: ‘not friends, not enemies, not relatives, not gifts given, not latterers, not those who provoke [exasperantes]’.94 Allegations of the unsuitable motives of advice-givers were the common currency of political polemic. The Fulda annalist attacked Louis the Pious’ counsellors as envious, while Paschasius saw them as takers of bribes.95 Charles the Fat’s magnates were also accused several times of giving bad advice for the sake of greed.96 Given such emphasis on the need for rulers to have good counsellors, one might expect advice on being a counsellor to appear prominently in the lay mirrors. Yet although both Paulinus and Dhuoda tell their lay readers that they need to have good advisers themselves, only Dhuoda instructs William on giving advice; the three other lay mirrors say nothing.97 Alcuin’s letters to lay noblemen give a few hints: they should be ‘prudent’ and ‘pleasant’ (suavis) in counsel-giving.98 Dhuoda develops these points in much more detail: advice must be given at the right time and William must prudently give counsel ‘sweeter than honey’.99 Although she describes King David’s adviser Hushai as ‘irm’, no secular counsellor is ever seen in the prophetic role that Paschasius gives to Wala.100 Dhuoda cites biblical examples to show good counsellors beneiting themselves materially and spiritually, and bad counsellors dying horribly. Her wise counsellors include both laymen (Joseph, Daniel, Achior, Hushai, Mordecai) and priests (Samuel, Jethro). Hincmar in De ordine palatii also sees both clerics and laymen as suitable counsellors.101 Yet the silence of many other moralists on the role of laymen in giving counsel suggests more ambiguity about this lay role and even a lurking clerical bias. When Sedulius, for example, wanted ‘religious’ counsellors, did he subconsciously feel that a king’s advisers should predominantly be clerics? It is particularly interesting that De institutione laicali does not explain to Matfrid of Orléans how to be a good counsellor, given Jonas’ concern in De institutione regia for kings to have good counsellors and Matfrid’s prominent position at court. This possible prejudice on the part of some clerical authors should not be exaggerated. Several clerical writers comment favourably on 93 94 95 97 98 99

Karoli capitula Italica, MGH Cap. i:101, p. 208, c. 2. De ordine 31, p. 86. Cf. Conventus in villa Colonia 843, MGH Cap. ii:254, p. 255, c. 4. AF 838, p. 29; VA 38, col. 1529. 96 Visio Karoli, p. 458; AF(M) 882, p. 98. LE 6, col. 201; LM 3:5–7, 3:11, pp. 96–104, 122. Alcuin, Epistola 33 (to Count Magenhar), 111 (to Megenfrid), pp. 75, 161. LM 3:5, p. 96. 100 Ibid. 3:7, p. 102; EA 2:5, col. 1613. 101 De ordine 31, p. 86.

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Central power Einhard as a royal counsellor.102 Yet, as shown earlier, moralists, both clerical and lay, condemned a number of lay courtiers for their bad inluence; even Dhuoda’s examples of bad biblical counsellors were the laymen Achitophel and Haman.103 Lay courtiers as a group may have been seen positively by moralists, but tension is more frequently visible about individual lay counsellors than clerical ones. Count s and moral ity The Carolingian count was the most signiicant secular oice-holder regularly seen in the Frankish empire. Most of the laymen who acted as ‘intermediaries’ between the ruler and local administration, such as missi, duces and marchiones, were also counts.104 The Council of Chalonsur-Saône in 813 described bishops and counts as those ‘who rule the people of God next after the dignity of the imperial crown [apex]’.105 There has been much debate about the origins and development of this comital system. Karl Ferdinand Werner, among others, argues for continuity with late antiquity.106 The terminology for the oice is certainly late Roman; the oice of the graio in the north and east of Merovingian Francia did not survive, yet this does not necessarily imply continuity of functions.107 In contrast, German scholars have traditionally stressed the barbarian roots of the comital system, even as their views on the nature of early Germanic society changed with the rise of the ‘new constitutional history’ in the 1930s.108 Much research interest has focused on the ‘comital constitution’ (Grafschaftsverfassung); many German scholars have distinguished a variety of diferent types of counts, with the Amtsgrafschaft of the former Roman empire co-existing with the Königsbanngrafschaft (where a count’s authority was simply over iscal lands and peasants) and the allodialen Grafschaft (where a local lord exercised comital rights without royal appointment, 102

103 104

105 106

107

See for example In honorem, 682–97; Walahfrid Strabo, Preface to VK (pp. xxviii–xxix); Visio Caroli Magni, p. 704. LM 3:7, p. 102. Karl Ferdinand Werner, ‘Missio–marchio–comes: Entre l’administration centrale et l’administration locale de l’Empire carolingien’, in Werner Paravicini and Karl Ferdinand Werner (eds.), Histoire comparée de l’administration (IVe–xVIIe siècles): Actes du xIVe colloque historique franco-allemand de l’Institut Historique Allemand de Paris, Beihefte der Francia 9 (Munich, 1980), pp. 191–239, at p. 221. Concilium Cabillonense 813, MGH Conc. 2:37, p. 277, c. 20. Werner, Naissance, pp. 303–8. Alexander Callander Murray, ‘The position of the graio in the constitutional history of Merovingian Gaul’, Speculum 64 (1986), 787–805 summarises research on the Frankish comes as a development of the Roman comes civitatis. Murray, ‘Position’, pp. 804–5. 108 Ibid., pp. 788–9.

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Counts and morality in virtue of his own ancestral rights).109 Hans Schulze has demonstrated problems with methodologies claiming to deduce the existence of Streugrafschaften (scattered counties), but such approaches are still being used.110 Matthew Innes has taken a diferent approach, using the middle Rhine valley to show how, from Charlemagne onwards, a new, more formal relationship between rulers and regional holders of power was created. As Innes puts it: the Carolingian programme mobilised local traditions of public action, and placed them in a direct relationship with the centre. Central to the structured chain of command thus created was the role of the count. Counts were directly responsible to the king as local rulers, charged with carrying out a moral programme recorded in the capitularies and kept in contact with the king’s wishes through written documents … whereas previously their power had rested on an inherited place in a social pyramid, now it was deined in terms of a political hierarchy.111

This was accompanied by more consistent use of the term ‘count’ and the establishment of the system of missi dominici, also taken from the local elite.112 Although I draw heavily on Innes’ model, my interest is less in the practices of countship, than in the ideology visible in Frankish moral texts. I will explore moral norms both around access to comital oice and the expected behavior of counts in oice. It is important to stress that early medieval beliefs about oice did not necessarily correspond to historical reality.113 Although many of the duces in territories around Francia were originally of Frankish origin and installed by Merovingian rulers, by the eighth century they saw themselves as rulers by the grace of God.114 Counts controlled areas of very varying sizes, but the Capitulare episcoporum from 793 is rare in distinguishing between ‘stronger’ (fortiores), ‘medium’ (mediocres) and ‘lesser’ (minores) counts;115 in general, the sources discuss them as a homogeneous group. 109

110

111 113

114

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Hans K. Schulze, ‘Die Grafschaftsorganisation als Element der frühmittelalterlichen Staatlichkeit’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus 14 (1990), 29–46, at p. 30. Hans K. Schulze, ‘Grundprobleme der Grafschaftsverfassung: Kritische Bemerkungen zu einer Neuerscheinung’, Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte 44 (1985), 265–82. Cf. Erwin Kupfer, ‘Karolingische Grafschaftsstrukturen im bayrisch-österreichischen Raum’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 111 (2003), 1–17 and the extensive literature he cites. Innes, State, pp. 188–9. 112 Ibid., p. 193. Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Staatlichkeit, Herrschaftsordnung und Lehnswesen im ostfränkischen Reich als Forschungsprobleme’, Il feudalesimo nell’alto medioevo, 8–12 aprile 1999, 2 vols., Settimane 47 (Spoleto, 2000),Vol. i, pp. 85–143, at p. 125. Karl Ferdinand Werner, ‘Les Principautés périphériques dans le monde franc du viiie siècle’, I problemi dell’occidente nel secolo VIII, Settimane 20 (Spoleto, 1973), pp. 438–514, at pp. 503–6. Werner, ‘Missio–marchio–comes’, pp. 221–2; Capitulare episcoporum, MGH Cap. i:21, p. 52.

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Central power Yet however inaccurate the picture of the count in moral texts may be, since they were heavily inluenced by royal propaganda, this pervasive ideological framework itself inluenced how the behaviour of lay noblemen was understood and interpreted. Obtaining oice It is probable that in some areas the title ‘count’ was simply assumed in the Merovingian period.116 In contrast there is little evidence for claims to autonomous comital rights from Charlemagne’s reign onwards. The attempt by Michael Borgolte to argue that the Alaholings claimed such rights is unconvincing, as Hans Schulze showed.117 Stuart Airlie, discussing the few uses of comital titles implying divine favour in the Carolingian period, concludes that it was only with Boso in 879 that an independent claim to power was made.118 My analysis of counts will therefore start with the norms for gaining and losing of secular oice. Although to modern thought such decisions might be seen as a purely political and ‘public’ matter, the sources frequently discuss them in moral terms and there were clearly implicit as well as explicit moral norms involved. Most basically, all secular oice-holding, with the exception of queenship, was a male activity. Janet Nelson has suggested that Charlemagne may have used his daughters in a somewhat similar political role to eunuchs, but they did not hold oice.119 References to the wives of counts as comitissae appear only at the end of the ninth century.120 Secondly, lay oices were largely reserved for laymen. Although missi could be either laymen or high-ranking clerics, and laymen held abbacies from the early ninth century,121 the giving of comital rights to bishops only became common in the late ninth century.122 Thirdly, it was seen as unsuitable that Jews should hold public oice and have Christians 116

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119 120

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See for example Otto P. Clavadetscher, ‘Churrätien im Übergang von der Spätantike zum Mittelalter nach den Schriftquellen’, in Joachim Werner and Eugen Ewig (eds.), Von der Spätantike zum frühen Mittelalter: Aktuelle Probleme in historischer und archäologischer Sicht (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 159–78, at pp. 171–4 on the ‘Victoriden’; Innes, State, pp. 179–85, and in particular the case of Heimerich, the son of Cancor. Borgolte, Geschichte der Grafschaften Alemanniens, pp. 165–7; Borgolte, ‘Alaholingerurkunden’, pp. 313–21; Schulze, ‘Grundprobleme’, pp. 278–80. Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’, pp. 276–9. On tenth-century uses of ‘gratia Dei comes’ and similar titles, see Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 138–40. Nelson, ‘Monstrous regiment’, pp. 58–9. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 358–65; Régine Le Jan, ‘L’Epouse du comte du ixe au xie siècle: Transformation d’un modèle et idéologie du pouvoir’, in Stéphane Lebecq et al. (eds.), Femmes et pouvoirs des femmes à Byzance et en Occident (VIe–xIe siècles): Colloque international organisé les 28, 29 et 30 mars 1996 à Bruxelles et Villeneuve d’Ascq (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1999), pp. 65–73. Felten, Äbte und Laienäbte, pp. 250–6. 122 MacLean, Kingship, pp. 113–14.

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Counts and morality subject to them: the Council of Meaux–Paris in 845–6 quotes the late-sixth-century Council of Mâcon on this.123 Finally, high social status was essential for laymen obtaining high oices. Men of lower birth could hold some lesser lay oices: Ermoldus Nigellus says that Coslus, the guard of the royal horses (custos equorum) who killed the Breton leader Murman, was not nobly born.124 There are no prominent secular men, however, whether holding oice or not, known to have been of low birth. Even those such as Einhard, who seem to have been only of middling status, still counted as noble.125 In contrast, there are a few examples of men from humble backgrounds holding high clerical oice. Ebbo was the most notorious example, while Walahfrid Strabo also seems to have been of relatively humble birth.126 Many counts are known descendants of earlier ones and individual oice-holders are often described as nobilis. Countships were not, however, limited to Franks; noble families from varied ethnic backgrounds were integrated into Carolingian administrative structures.127 This reliance solely on the nobility to ill oices contrasts with the Byzantine use of eunuchs as oice-holders to replace or counter-balance the hereditary upper classes.128 Rulers’ room for manoeuvre in granting oice, especially for the most important counties, has often been debated.129 Matthew Innes argues that Carolingian rulers used the more formalised framework of oice they had created in order to increase their control over such decisions.130 Nobles had no automatic right to oice. There are references in the sources to bishops, counts and ‘other nobles’, and even brothers could have diferent success in their careers.131 Despite Bernard of Septimania’s position, Dhuoda gives no hint to William that he has an automatic right to oice or giving counsel; instead she stresses his need to show his ‘merit’.132 123

124 125

126 127 129 130 131 132

Council of Meaux–Paris 845–6, MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 122, c. 73; Cf. Walter Ullmann, ‘Public welfare and social legislation in the early medieval councils’, in G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker (eds.), Councils and Assemblies: Papers Read at the Eighth Summer Meeting and the Ninth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 7 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 1–39, at pp. 23–4. In honorem, 1688–9. On his oicial position see Astronomer 30, p. 386. Cf. Airlie, ‘Bonds’. Smith, ‘Einhard’, p. 61. For the Merovingian period, see Franz Irsigler, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des frühfränkischen Adels, Rheinisches Archiv 70 (Bonn, 1969), pp. 147–8 on Conda; Paul Fouracre, ‘Merovingians, mayors of the palace and the notion of a “low-born” Ebroin’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 57 (1984), 1–14 on Ebroin. On Walahfrid, see MGH Poet. ii, p. 259. Werner, ‘Missio–marchio–comes’, pp. 206–7. 128 Ringrose, Perfect Servant, pp. 5–28. Werner, ‘Missio–marchio–comes’, pp. 222–3, Airlie, ‘The aristocracy’, pp. 443–5. Innes, State, pp. 190–2. Goetz, ‘Nobilis’, p. 175; Airlie, ‘The aristocracy’, pp. 446–7. LM 3:5, p. 96: ‘Si ad perfectum te aliquando adduxerit Deus, ut ad consilium inter magnatos merearis esse vocatus’ (‘If God should at last lead you to be perfect enough to merit being called

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Central power Nevertheless, kings did not have complete freedom of appointment; it was rare, for example, to appoint outsiders to positions within a locality.133 Prominent men who changed sides in royal conlicts expected to be rewarded: in 861 Adalard, Uto and Berengar were ‘comforted with honours’ when they sought refuge in Charles the Bald’s kingdom. Charles also felt it necessary to reward those of his previous followers who had returned from a defection to Louis the German in 858.134 Louis the Stammerer faced rebellion in 877 when he attempted to distribute oices without the consent of his magnates. The next year, he had to agree to conirm the sons of Gauzfrid in usurped honores; the Annals of St-Bertin also speciically state that it was on his counsellors’ advice that he distributed the honores of the disgraced Bernard, marchio of Gothia.135 The few explicit discussions of moral norms on granting oice relect this view of royal rights constrained by legitimate noble expectations. Regino praises Louis the German for his virtue in giving oice only to the deserving and not for the sake of money.136 The norms on inherited oice show a similar balancing act. The Capitulary of Quierzy in 877, for example, does not speciically enforce a hereditary principle, but is concerned for the secure transmission of honores of both deceased counts and vassi, and involves the dead man’s relatives in the immediate administration of the area.137 Nevertheless, Charles the Bald states: ‘let no-one grow angry if we should give the same county to another, as it may please us, rather than to the one who till now foresaw it’.138 In the next clause, Charles adds that if one of his ideles decides to retire into a monastery after Charles’ death ‘pricked by the love of God and us’, he could freely hand over his honores to a son or relative who could beneit the state.139 The same tone is heard when Hincmar a few years later advised Carloman how to restore palace institutions: I know no-one to be now alive from those who were seen at the time of the lord emperor Louis as palace administrators and governors of the kingdom [palatii procuratores et regni praefecti]. Yet I know that sons were born from their nobility to replace them, although I do not know their character and qualities. Let them ensure that they are not unworthy in character and virtue, and

133 136 137 138

to council among the magnates’); Lm 3:8, p. 104: ‘si ad hoc perveneris, ut cum commilitionibus infra aulam regalem atque imperialem, vel ubique utilis merearis esse servitor’ (‘If you should come to merit being a useful servant with your fellow soldiers in the royal or imperial hall or elsewhere’). Innes, State, pp. 188–9. 134 AB 861, p. 55. 135 Ibid. 877, 878, pp. 137, 140. Regino 876, p. 110. Nelson, Charles the Bald, pp. 248–9; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 253. MGH Cap. ii:281, p. 358, c. 9. 139 Ibid., p. 358, c. 10.

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Counts and morality wisdom and good education [studii boni], as their age and the quality of the time allows. To the extent of their merit, let them ill the places and oices of their fathers.140

Similarly, a charter by Count Orendil from 814 hopes that ‘one of my sons might be worthy [dignus] to attain the ministry of count’.141 While Carolingian moralists sometimes regarded those ordained because of ties of kinship as simoniacs, there were no corresponding concerns about secular oice being hereditary in nature.142 In practice, some secular and ecclesiastical oices were efectively monopolised by one family for considerable periods, although this did not necessarily involve direct succession in the paternal line.143 Kings, however, could still manipulate families, and sons might have to wait considerable lengths of time and rely on royal favour to succeed to countships.144 In 868, Charles the Bald removed honores previously granted to the sons of Robert the Strong and Ranulf.145 This royal right to dismiss oicials, especially counts, for negligence or wrongdoing was a continuing part of the rhetoric of Carolingian capitularies, irst mentioned in the irst Saxon capitulary in the early 780s, and still repeated by the post-Carolingian ruler of Italy, Wido, at the end of the ninth century.146 A number of counts were actually dismissed, but the sources almost always ascribe such dismissals to rebellion or other ‘treasonable’ behaviour.147 The one exception is for alleged military incompetence: Worad, count of the palace, may have been demoted after the disaster of the Süntel Mountains in 782 and several counts were deinitely dismissed by Louis the Pious.148 In contrast, despite all the demands for

140 141

142 143

144 146

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De ordine 37, p. 96. Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising: Band 1, 744–926, ed. Theodor Bitterauf, Quellen und Erörterungen zur Bayerischen und deutsche Geschichte, Neue Folge 4 (Munich, 1905) 313, p. 269. See for example Council of Attigny 822, MGH Conc. 2:42, p. 472, c. 6; De ordine 9, pp. 48–50. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 249–57. Even in the late Carolingian period, not all counties were hereditary: see Constance Brittain Bouchard, Those of My Blood: Constructing Noble Families in Medieval Francia (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 135–54 on the counts of Autun. See Innes, State, pp. 189–92 on the family of Count Warin. 145 AB 868, p. 91. Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, MGH Cap. i:26, p. 70, cc. 24, 28; Widonis imperatoris capitulare Papiense legibus addendum 891, MGH Cap. ii:224, p. 108, c. 3. Cf. Capitulare missorum Aquisgranense alterum 809, MGH Cap. i:63, p. 152, c. 7; Hludowici II capitulare Papiense 850, MGH Cap. ii:213, p. 86, c. 1. Adelheid Krah,Absetzungverfahren als Spiegelbild von Königsmacht:Untersuchungen zum Kräftesverhältnis zwischen Königtum und Adel im Karolingerreich und seinen Nachfolgestaaten, Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, Neue Folge 26 (Aalen, 1987), pp. 379–92 lists the known cases. Nelson, ‘Charlemagne’s court’, pp. 54–5; Astronomer 5, pp. 298 (Chorso), ARF 828, p. 174 (Hugo, Matfrid and Baldrich).

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Central power counts to avoid corruption, the only known investigation was made after the count concerned, Matfrid of Orléans, had already lost his honores.149 Removal from oice, moreover, was morally contentious. Thomas Zotz points out the charged terms used (privare, expulsare), with their undertones of attack on a man’s honour.150 Kings were keen to maintain their freedom to remove or reinstate men in oice, but also promised not to do so arbitrarily. At the Conventus of Meersen in 851, Charles the Bald, Louis the German and Lothar I stated: ‘that our faithful men [ideles], each one in his rank [ordo] and status, may be truly secure in respect of us, because henceforth we shall neither condemn anyone, nor deprive anyone of his honores [dehonorabimus] nor alict him with undeserved machinations contrary to law and justice and authority and just reason’.151 Occasionally, however, the sources say or imply that men have lost their oices unjustly: Hincmar condemns Charles the Bald’s treatment of Count Gerald of Bourges and Charles’ chamberlain, Engelram, while Regino reports Zwentibold’s stripping Reginar of honours for an unknown reason.152 Such dismissals were rarely contested directly by nobles, although discontent was often shown by support for rebellious Carolingian princes.153 Moralists are clearly hostile to the few violent attempts to regain lost oices, although blame for such disorder is often seen as shared. Hincmar calls Gerald of Bourges’ murder of his successor an outrage, but also criticises the brutality of Charles’ response in Berry.154 The Fulda annalist reports the sufering caused in Pannonia by conlicts over the oice of marchio on the Bavarian frontier.155 Abbo laments the killing of Hugh, count of Berry, in a dispute with William the Pious over honours.156 A double discourse around oice is visible in the period, with a public language of oice-holding at royal will co-existing with a strong sense of the justiiable claims of noble families to particular oices. These two viewpoints should not be seen as opposed, or as held by diferent groups within the ruling class. As Hincmar’s comments in De ordine palatii show, they were essentially two faces of the same coin: the overriding ideal was of oices held by worthy nobles in succession to their worthy ancestors. 149 150

151 152 153 155

Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’, pp. 77–8. Thomas Zotz,‘Im Amt und Würden: Zur Eigenart “oizieller” Positionen im früheren Mittelalter’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 22 (1993), 1–23, at p. 20. AB 851, p. 39 (Conventus of Meersen, c. 6). Ibid. 867, 875, pp. 90, 127; Regino 898, p. 145. Airlie, ‘Semper ideles?’. 154 AB 868, pp. 90–1. AF(B) 884, pp. 110–11. 156 See Chapter 3, pp. 110–11.

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Counts and morality Behaviour in oice Discussions of comital ideology have tended to focus on the development of the idea of the ministerium of oice-holders. Although this term had several meanings,157 the Admonitio of Louis the Pious from 823 × 825 sees his ideles (including counts) speciically as sharing and helping in the royal ministerium of defending, exalting and honouring the church, and maintaining justice and peace.158 The signiicance of this ministerium has been much debated.While most of the provisions in Louis’ capitulary are addressed to the elite, some seem to apply to all his ideles;159 the ministerium may not solely be of oice-holders.There has been much argument about the extent to which being a ‘minister’ involved a personal relationship to the ruler, rather than one to the ‘state’.160 It is revealing to examine the other moral demands made on counts in the Admonitio. Counts are to show honour and reverence to bishops, to live in harmony with them and help them. They are to maintain peace and justice and ensure that royal decrees are carried out. They are to be true helpers of the emperor and protectors of the people. In judging cases they are not to be swayed by bribery, love, hatred, fear or favour; they are to help and defend widows, orphans, the poor and the church as much as possible. They are to correct those involved in theft and banditry (latrocinium).161 Such a programme is not new, but summarises a tradition of consistent, if not monotonous, admonitions to counts in Carolingian capitularies over more than a century. Charlemagne’s demands in the Admonitio generalis, for harmony between bishops and counts and just judging, difer little from those of his grandson, Charles the Bald, eighty years later.162 The problems of widows and bandits are also recurrent themes.163 The 157

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Thomas Zotz, ‘Grafschaftverfassung und Personengeschichte: Zu einem neuem Werk über das karolingerzeitliche Alemannian’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 136 (1988), 1–16, at p. 11; Devisse, ‘Consilium et auxilium’, pp. 187–8. Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, MGH Cap. i:150, p. 303, cc. 2, 3; Olivier Guillot, ‘Une ordinatio méconnue: Le Capitulaire de 823–825’, in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne’s Heir, pp. 455–86, at pp. 464–6. Ibid., pp. 479–80 on c. 11. Johannes Fried, ‘Der karolingische Herrschaftsverband im 9. Jh. zwischen “Kirche” und “Königshaus”’, Historische Zeitschrift 235 (1982), 1–43, at pp. 11–12; Zotz, ‘Amt und Würden’, pp. 13–16. Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, MGH Cap. i:150, p. 304, cc. 7–8. Admonitio generalis 789, MGH Cap. i:22, p. 58, cc. 62, 63; Capitula Pistensia, MGH Cap. ii:275, p. 336, cc. 11, 12. See for example on protection of widows and orphans: Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 94, c. 14; Capitula Papiae optimatibus ab imperatore pronuntia 865, MGH Cap. II:216, p. 92, c. 3. On banditry: Capitulare Mantuanum, MGH Cap. i:90, p. 191, c. 10; Capitulare Carisiacense, MGH Cap. ii:278, p. 343, c. 1.

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Central power letter written by west Frankish bishops in 858 to Louis the German covers much the same ground as Louis the Pious’ Admonitio, although with more details of possible abuses; it adds the need for counts to hate avarice and pride, and to try and reconcile litigants, rather than gain money from their cases.164 The letter also stressed the need for counts to have subordinates of good character, who share their concern for justice. The same theme appears in Charlemagne’s capitulary for the missi from 802 and Alcuin’s works.165 These repeated admonitions are marked by their ‘public’ nature. Louis the Pious’ Admonitio refers to the idelity promised personally to the king by counts, but only to reinforce the need for them to fulil the ‘part of the ministerium’ committed to them.166 Even the need for counts to live in harmony with others focuses more on their relationships with other oicials than their general peacefulness. This emphasis on the public role of counts contrasts sharply with the moral expectations of two other important oices: bishops and kings. From the New Testament onwards, bishops had to show exemplary personal, as well as oicial, behaviour.167 Similarly, moral demands of rulers extended to their persona as well as their oice.168 Regino, however, praised Louis the German because under him ‘no one obtained an ecclesiastical or secular dignity for money, but rather ecclesiastical ones for proven morals and holy way of life [probi mores et sancta conversatio], secular ones for devoted service and true idelity [sincera idelitas]’.169 The capitularies also show a lack of concern about both the count’s body (in terms of sexual behaviour or drunkenness) and his control of his own household. Only if a count’s household was suspected of harbouring the disorderly, or his retinue were imposing on others in the course of his public duties, did kings become involved.170 When Louis the Pious in 823 × 825 demanded reports on each other by counts and bishops, he asked for information ‘on how counts love justice and do it, and on how religiously bishops live [conversentur] and preach’.171 The Council of Paris 164 165

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Quierzy letter, c. 12, pp. 421–2. Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 96, c. 25 (on this text, see McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 257–62; Patzold, ‘Normen in Buch’, pp. 334–44); DVV 20, col. 629. Alcuin, Epistola 33, p. 75 wants Count Magenhar to ensure his subiecti are ‘just in judgements, merciful to the wretched, God fearing’. Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, MGH Cap. i:150, p. 304, c. 8. 1 Timothy 3:1–7. 168 Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’, pp. 27–33. Regino 876, p. 110. See for example Capitula de rebus exercitalibus in placito tractanda 811, MGH Cap. i:73, p. 165, c. 4; Capitulare de disciplina palatii Aquisgranensis, MGH Cap. i:146, p. 298, c. 2; Hlotharii et Karoli conventus apud Valentianas 853, MGH Cap. ii:206, pp. 75–76, Adnuntiatio Karoli, c. 5. Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, MGH Cap. i:150, p. 305, c. 14.

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Counts and morality of 829, which discussed episcopal and royal behaviour in considerable detail, decided that a discussion of the comital life was not a priority.172 Although recent scholarship has stressed the personal nature of comital power ‘exercised through groups of people, overlapping collectivities’,173 ideologically, the count was regarded as an impersonal oicer of the regnum. The Capitulary of Herstal 779 speciically states: By the testimony of the bishops, punishment and judgement done to bandits [latrones] is without sin for the count, provided that it is done without envy or evil opportunity, and nothing else is introduced, except creating true justice. And if he [the count] should maim a man through hate or evil occasion, unless in doing justice, let him lose his honor.174

Hincmar, discussing duces and counts, warns: ‘nor should they think the people of God theirs or subject to them for their glory, which belongs to tyranny and unjust power’;175 in contrast, it was a commonplace for a king or a bishop to regard the people as ‘his’. The capitularies also show moral ambivalence towards oice-holders. Counts, along with other lay and clerical oice-holders, were both the chosen means to regulate and correct the population, and the biggest obstacle to this. The capitularies repeatedly condemned oice-holders at all levels who neglected their duties or abused their powers: a capitulary from 811, for example, records complaints about bishops, abbots, advocates, hundredsmen and iudices.176 Some texts detail speciic abuses, such as the claim that counts summoned men too frequently to the army or placita (public court hearings).177 The Council of Paris in 829 reported that bishops, counts and other oicials were imposing excessively low price limits on the produce sold to them by the poor.178 The Council of Arles in 813 makes clear the circularity of the problem, demanding: Counts or deputies [vicarii] or judges or hundredsmen are not to buy the goods of the poor at an unfavourable opportunity for them, or by cunning, nor take the goods away by force, or by whatever argument. But if any possession is to be bought or sold it should be done in public before the count and the judges and the nobility of the city.179 172

173 174 176 177 178 179

Mayke de Jong, ‘Ecclesia and the early medieval polity’, in Airlie, Pohl and Reimitz, Staat im Frühmittelalter, pp. 113–32, at p. 131; MGH Conc. 2, p. 68, c. 93. Innes, State, p. 124. MGH Cap. i:20, p. 49, c. 11. 175 Ad episcopos 14, col. 1015. Capitula de rebus exercitalibus in placito tractanda 811, MGH Cap. i:73, p. 165, cc. 2–3. Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Pauperes’, pp. 170–1. MGH Conc. 2:50, p. 645, c. 52. Concilium Arelatense 813, MGH Conc. 2:34, p. 253, c. 23: ‘Ne comites vel vicarii seu iudices vel centenarii sub mala occasione vel ingenio res pauperum emant nec per vim tollant aut quolibet argumento subripiant; sed si cui aliquid possessionum emendum aut vendendum est, id in publico coram comite et iudicibus et nobilibus civitatis facere debebit.’

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Central power Paul Fouracre goes too far, however, in claiming that counts ‘had a bad press in Frankish tradition’.180 Although hagiography and capitularies may stress evil counts, images of ‘good’ counts appear in other genres. A number of poems praise counts: Eric of Friuli, William of Toulouse, Count Timo and Eberhard of Friuli were all celebrated in verse.181 Agobard in De iniusticiis contrasted injustice at the royal court with the good justice provided by Agobard’s local count Bertmund and his subordinates.182 Such positive views however, share the same lack of interest in counts’ personal lives. While the sexual misdemeanours of kings connected the moral and political in signiicant ways,183 the sources report relatively few ‘sexual scandals’ about counts.The few that are mentioned take their signiicance from connections to other forms of power, such as claims about Bernard of Septimania’s adultery with Queen Judith.184 Count Stephen of the Auvergne’s marriage became a ‘scandal’ because of the resulting public conlict with his wife’s family, while Regino’s report of Count Richwin killing his dishonoured wife is used to exemplify the disorder centring round the royal pretender Hugo.185 Vision literature often criticises royalty and clerics for sexual failings, but when they mention counts in hell, it is for their behaviour in oice. For example, the Visio cuiusdam pauperculae mulieris condemns Count Bego (Pico) for his avarice. Walahfrid Strabo shows images of clerics and Charlemagne with their genitals tortured,186 alongside counts whose sins are reported in terms very similar to those of the capitularies: ‘They are not the avengers of crime, but the friends of Satan. Some of them inlict many perils on their people; despising the law, they are accustomed to condemn the innocent and exonerate the guilty; they ally themselves with thieves and are partners in every crime … Their avaricious eagerness does not know how to concede anything.’187 While discussions of 180 181

182 183 184 186 187

Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, p. 788. Paulinus, Carmen 2, pp. 131–3; In honorem, 172–211; Carmen de Timone comite; Sedulius, Carmina ii:38, 39, 53, 67, pp. 202–3, 212, 220–1. De iniusticiis, p. 226. Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’, p. 29; Airlie, ‘Private bodies’. See above, p. 139. 185 On Stephen, see Stone, ‘Bound’; Regino 883, p. 121. Visio Wettini, 319–25, 446–64. Ibid., 492–500: Non scelerum ultores, Satanae sed habentur amici; Illorum quidam multis stringendo periclis Aiciunt homines, iustos damnare, reosque Iustiicare viros contempta lege solentes, Furibus adnexi, vititumque per omne sodales, … Ardor avaritiae nescit concedere quicquam.

Walahfrid does not make explicit the sins of counts Odalrih and Ruadrih (see 414–27 and p. 142).

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Counts and morality counts have little to say about their personal lives, conversely the lay mirrors, though addressed to counts and duces, have little speciic to say about the behaviour of oice-holders other than judges. Jonas in De institutione regia is unusual in speciically linking the personal and political for counts: they must ‘recognise that the people of Christ are their equal by nature’ and not try to dominate them.188 A similar split is also visible in sources portraying ‘holy’ counts.Walahfrid Strabo, recounting the virtues that led Gerald of Bavaria to heaven, mentions only his personal qualities.189 The Carmen de Timone comite shows a count whose exemplary concern for justice is accompanied by a lack of spiritual discernment.190 The sources show little interest in the wider moral signiicance of comital oice.The term honor is frequently used, which was also used for grants of land or gifts: the dignity that oice brings is stressed, as much as its public role.191 Secular titles of oice rarely attracted the moralising etymology common for episcopal and royal titles. Isidore’s Etymologiae included etymologies for rex and dux, though not comes.192 The etymology for rex became part of the standard moral-political rhetoric about kingship;193 the etymology of dux was to my knowledge never quoted by Carolingian authors. Apart from Dhuoda’s manual, all the lay mirrors instruct that one should not love worldly honores. Jonas warns: ‘sometimes people fall into pride because of secular honores’,194 while Alcuin and Paulinus stress the transitory nature of such honours.195 Yet none of the mirror writers suggest that laymen should be reluctant to accept oice, while reluctance for a role as a religious leader is a prominent theme in monastic writing and in Gregory the Great’s work.196 There is a similar contrast in moralists’ attitude to unworthy oiceholders. Carolingian theories on royal power sometimes suggested that only a good king was a legitimate king.197 In contrast, a bad count was 188 189 191 192

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DIR 5, p. 208: ‘ut plebem Christi sibi natura aequalem recognoscant’. Visio Wettini, 802–26. 190 Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 1–5. Zotz, ‘Amt und Würden’, p. 19. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarvm sive originvm libri xx, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), ix.3.4, 22. See for example DIR 3, p. 184; and, for episcopus, LM 3:11, p. 118. DIL 3:4, cols. 238–9. Cf De ordine 37, pp. 96–8. DVV 35, p. 40: ‘Nonne melius est et beatius Deum diligere … quam huius seculi amare … honores et felicitates seculi transitorias’ (‘Is it not better and more blessed to love God than the things of this world, the transitory honores and fortunes of this world’); LE 11, col. 206: ‘Gaudet miles terrenus acquisisse honores hujus saeculi perituros’ (‘The earthly warrior rejoices in having received the perishable honores of this world’). See for example Visio Wettini, 78–81, 93–100; Regula pastoralis i:3, 5, 7, Vol. i, pp. 136–8, 144–8, 150–4. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Kingship and empire in the Carolingian world’, in McKitterick, Carolingian Culture, pp. 52–87, at pp. 66–9.

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Central power not a contradiction in terms, although some counts were described as ‘tyrants’.198 Jonas quotes Bede’s exegesis of the statement in 1 Peter that Christians should obey earthly authority: ‘Not that they allowed that all duces sent by kings either punished those doing badly or praised the good; but he simply relates what the action of a good dux ought to be’.199 Since counts were conceived of as legitimate essentially because of royal appointment, their control was thus similarly a royal matter. There is no tradition of counts sufering ecclesiastical penalties, such as penance or excommunication, for their failings in oice, despite the use of such methods against other ‘secular’ ofenders. Hagiographical texts often include stories of counts sufering divine punishment, but this is most often for an ofence against the saint;200 the message for any lay noblemen in the text’s audience is more about the respect due to a speciic holy man or woman than the general avoidance of sin. In contrast, other narrative sources, such as annals, rarely show counts as punished by God in this world. The two exceptions are for military overconidence or treachery, precisely the ofences for which rulers dismissed counts.201 Instead, the failures of counts were seen as imperilling the kings who appointed them, just as the kings’ own moral failings did. Jonas warned rulers: ‘it is necessary that such duces and counts are provided for appointment who can be appointed without peril to the man who appointed them’.202 The sources’ presentation of the moral behaviour expected of counts suggests that an understanding of ‘oice’ as distinct from ‘person’ was possible in the case of counts. The ‘ethical personalism’ that Fried sees as characteristic of Carolingian thought is far less prominent in discussions of counts than of rulers.203 Possibly this is simply due to a relative lack of interest in counts, but it may also indicate that the search for ‘transpersonal’ political ideas is distorted by a focus on kingship, whose hereditary nature intrinsically personalised the oice.204 198

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EA 2:7, col. 1615 on Bernard of Septimania; AB 864, p. 72 on Bernard’s son Bernard; AF(B) 899, p. 133 on Isanrich; Astronomer 19, p. 336, and Pope Nicholas I, Epistola 43, ed. E. Perels, MGH Epp. 6 (Berlin, 1925), p. 317 on the primores of Aquitaine; Pope John VIII, Epistola 142, in Registrum Iohannis VIII papae, ed. E. Caspar, MGH Epp. 7 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 1–272, at p. 122 on Bernard, marchio of Gothia. DIR 5, p. 208 quoting Bede, In epistolas septem catholicas, ed. David Hurst, Bedae venerabilis opera. Pars II, 4: Opera exegetica, CCSL 121 (Turnhout, 1983), pp. 181–342: 1 Peter 2:13–14, p. 240. See for example Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 58–60 on the story of Count Husing in the Vita Corbiniani. See for example AF 849, 869, pp. 38–9, 67–8. DIR 5, p. 208. Cf. Ad episcopos 14, col. 1015. Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’, p. 43. On diferences between the mirrors for princes and mirrors for laity, see also Stone, ‘Kings’.

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Justice and the legal system Justice and the legal syste m The Frankish legal system was marked by its plurality, with both local comital courts and ecclesiastical tribunals alongside a royal court. A variety of means were used to decide cases and there was also a lourishing culture of extrajudicial dispute settlement.205 The precise extent of judicial innovation in the Carolingian period is diicult to establish, because of the scarcity of Merovingian sources.206 Two new developments were the use of the missi dominici as royal representatives in legal cases from the 780s, and the development of the procedure of inquisitio in the ninth century, by which those in charge of cases could compel local men to testify about a case, sometimes on oath.207 From the 780s scabini (permanently appointed local judgement-inders) appear in documents, replacing the rachymburgi.208 It is unlikely that this change in terminology changed the type of men involved, but it demonstrates a new emphasis on oicially deined roles for those possessing local inluence, and may also have led to ‘professional’ judges.209 There was also a considerable expansion in the types of cases reserved for the emperor and the palace court, a development that soon led to an excessive caseload there.210 Religious ideas were basic to Carolingian understandings of law.211 Many patristic authors had argued that human law, as promulgated by rulers, should relect divine ‘natural law’.212 Isidore, in particular, stressed the role of the ruler in beneiting the ruled, using law as his instrument to implement and inculcate justice.213 The Carolingian legal system was similarly dominated by moral principles, with the very concept of law being morally charged. The prefaces to several of the leges attribute their 205 206 207

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See for example Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 202–4. Wormald, Making, pp. 88–9. Régine Le Jan, ‘Justice royale et pratiques sociales dans le royaume franc au ixe siècle’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo (secoli Ix–xI), 11–17 aprile 1996, 2 vols., Settimane 44 (Spoleto, 1997),Vol. i, pp. 47–90, at pp. 56–8, 77–8. Francis N. Estey, ‘The scabini and the local courts’, Speculum 26 (1951), 119–29; François-Louis Ganshof, ‘The impact of Charlemagne on the institutions of the Frankish realm’, Speculum 40 (1965), 47–62, at pp. 54–7. Innes, State, pp. 184–5; Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice in western Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo (secoli Ix–xI),11–17 aprile 1996, 2 vols., Settimane 44 (Spoleto, 1997),Vol. ii, pp. 1075–104, at pp. 1097–8. François-Louis Ganshof, Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne, trans. Bryce Lyon and Mary Lyon (Providence, RI, 1968), pp. 83–6. Philippe Depreux, ‘La Loi et le droit: La Part des échanges culturels dans la référence à la norme et les pratiques juridiques durant le haut Moyen Age’, in Les Echanges culturels au moyen âge: xxxIIe Congrès de la SHMES, Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, juin 2001, Publications de la Sorbonne 70 (Paris, 2002), pp. 41–70, at p. 44. Markus, ‘Latin fathers’, pp. 98–101. P. D. King, ‘The barbarian kingdoms’, in J. H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350–c. 1450 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 123–53, at pp. 142–4.

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Central power composition to the deliberations of groups of wise and/or illustrious men, while the prologue to the ‘D’ text of Lex Salica, probably dating from the time of Pippin, speciically linked Frankish identity to loving justice.214 Hincmar repeatedly quoted Pseudo-Cyprian’s claim that the twelfth abuse of the world was ‘a people without law’ (populus sine lege).215 Jonas cited Isaiah 10:1: ‘woe to those who establish iniquitous laws and writing, write injustice’.216 Relecting this concern, capitulary legislation on the judicial system focused strongly on its moral aspects;217 this contrasts with a far more pragmatic focus on topics such as military institutions. Given this close connection of law and morality, several Carolingian reformers opposed speciic secular laws as morally wrong. Theodulf condemned the use of mutilation and death as punishment for thieves, while only ines were paid for murder, and contrasted this with biblical commands.218 Hincmar denounced secular law and custom for permitting the killing of adulterous wives.219 In several passages of De instituione laicali Jonas complains about immoral practices justiied by appeals to secular law.220 The key term in this moral understanding of the law was iustitia.221 This had many meanings, including the divinely ordained social order, the administration of justice and also a particular individual’s legal or moral rights.222 Justice as a social virtue is seen most clearly in Charlemagne’s demand in 802: ‘Let all in every way live justly according to the precept of God, with just judgement.’223 Theodulf wanted a judge’s court sessions to start with an exhortation to those present: ‘Learn justice, learn heavenly commands.’224 Jonas saw it as part of the duties of the whole lay ordo to ‘serve justice’.225 However, iustitia could also refer to rights that may not necessarily be seen as ‘just’ in our sense.226 214 215

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McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, p. 1095; Wormald, Making, p. 41. See for example De divortio, Anhang Responsio 7, p. 261; Bishops’ answer, Council of Douzy 871, MGH Conc. 4:37c, p. 501, c. 12; De regis 27, col. 851. DIL 2:24, col. 220. 217 Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, p. 779. Theodulf, Carmen 29, pp. 517–20. 219 See Chapter 6, p. 203. DIL 2:4 (male adultery), 2:12 (husbands divorcing wives), 2:23 (oppression of the poor by the rich), 3:5 (‘rendering evil for evil’), cols. 177, 189, 215, 241–2. Mähl, Quadriga virtutum, pp. 7–34 summarises the classical tradition of iustitita as one of the four cardinal virtues, and its reception in patristic thought. McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, p. 1081. Cf. Patze, ‘Iustitia bei Nithard’. Capitulare missorum generale, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 92, c. 1. Paraenesis, 448, p. 505. 225 See Chapter 3, p. 87. See Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, ‘Note sur l’expression iustitiam facere dans les capitulaires carolingiens’, in Michel Sot (ed.), Haut moyen âge: Culture, éducation et société, études ofertes à Pierre Riché (Paris, 1990), pp. 249–64, although her claim that iustitia frequently refers to iscal revenues seems unlikely (Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, pp. 801–2).

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Justice and the legal system Merovingian and Carolingian political rhetoric stressed the importance of iustitia. Royal power, in particular, was understood as founded on justice and legitimised by it.227 Rosamond McKitterick summarises three key elements in the ninth-century political ideology of authors such as Paulinus, Jonas and Sedulius Scottus: ‘irstly, that justice was a virtue and part of an ethical code; secondly, that worldly justice was linked with divine justice and law as paving the path to eternal life with God; thirdly that the practical exercise of justice was an essential element for political strength and stability’.228 Law and power Despite these exalted ideals, recent research has consistently shown the powerful using the judicial system to reinforce their power.229 Distinctions were made in all aspects of the system, with one of the most basic being on the grounds of sex. Although barbarian laws imposed relatively few restrictions on women’s property rights, for example, they were often limited in the extent to which they could personally exercise such rights.230 They were also normally unable to act as witnesses.231 Other limitations on female participation in the legal system probably existed, but were rarely explicitly mentioned. One exception is the ‘Council of Nantes’, which quoted ‘divine’ and ‘human’ law (1 Corinthians 14:34–5 and the Theodosian code) to argue that women were only allowed to discuss their own cases in public, not those of others.232 The authenticity of these canons is uncertain, although Wilfried Hartmann thinks that Regino, who cites them, may have taken them from an episcopal capitulary.233 In contrast to these legal restrictions on women, elite men had a particular role in presiding over courts, and making and enforcing judgements. Dhuoda, for example, instructs William on how he should behave if he is required to judge cases.234 In the local mallus (court meeting-place), the judgement inders who assisted the presiding oicer (usually a count 227 228 229 230

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Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, pp. 53–4; Fouracre, ‘Conlict, power and legitimation’, pp. 19–21. McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, p. 1076. Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, pp. 50–1. François-Louis Ganshof, ‘Le Statut de la femme dans la monarchie franque’, Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 12 (1962), 5–58, at p. 8. See for example Janet L. Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement in Carolingian West Francia’, in Davies and Fouracre, Settlement, pp. 45–64, at pp. 51–2, 58; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Women and the Word in the earlier middle ages’, in W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds.), Women in the Church: Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford, 1990), pp. 53–78, at pp. 62–3. ‘Council of Nantes 895’, in Mansi 18a, cols. 171–2, c. 19. Hartmann, Die Synoden, p. 387. 234 LM 4:8, p. 154.

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Central power or his subordinate) were normally men of local standing: texts sometimes refer to them as nobiles.235 Men of higher status were required to attend local placita more frequently than other free men.236 In ninth-century Brittany, impartial witnesses (chosen by judges rather than ofered by the parties) seem to have been selected from a limited sector of the free, male, propertied population of the area and are sometimes referred to as nobiles.237 Witnesses in Italy had to hold enough property to be able to pay their wergild if they were ined for perjury, and a capitulary from 829 prohibited freemen without property from witnessing in others’ property disputes.238 Noblemen’s power over the legal system was still limited, however, compared to later centuries: the free peasantry were not yet subject to lordly jurisdiction, and there was still collective action in judgements into the tenth century.239 Servi were subject to the judgement of their lords in many circumstances, but not all. Charlemagne’s capitulary on bandits from about 804 stated: ‘It is allowed to every individual to have power of doing justice about his servus for all neglectful acts, unless perhaps he should be apprehended in a theft.’240 Although immunities existed, and could be held by laymen as well as churches, their jurisdiction did not extend to the most serious ofences.241 Simply as a party to a case, however, the powerful sometimes had institutionalised advantages. Although every free man normally seems to have been allowed to appeal to the palace court, some capitularies limit the legal rights of certain socially inferior groups.242 For example, ‘worthless people’ (viles personae) were prohibited from making accusations by the Admonitio generalis, while the Council of Tours in 813 argued they should not be allowed to testify.243 235

236 237

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240 241

242 243

Karin Nehlsen-von Stryk, Die boni homines des frühen Mittelalters: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der fränkischen Quellen, Freiburger Rechstgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, Neue Folge 2 (Berlin, 1981), pp. 242–55; Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement’, pp. 58–60. Ganshof, ‘Impact of Charlemagne’, pp. 57–8. Wendy Davies, ‘People and places in dispute in ninth-century Brittany’, in Davies and Fouracre, Settlement, pp. 65–84, at pp. 80–2. Chris Wickham, ‘Land disputes and their social framework in Lombard-Carolingian Italy, 700–900’, in Davies and Fouracre, Settlement, pp. 105–24, at p. 111; Capitulare pro lege habendum Wormatiense 829, MGH Cap. ii:193, p. 19, c. 6. Innes, State, p. 49; Wendy Davies, ‘On servile status in the early middle ages’, in M. L. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage (London, 1996), pp. 225–46, at pp. 236–8. Capitulare Karoli M. de latronibus, MGH Cap. i:82, p. 181, c. 7. Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement’, p. 62; Julius Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanour: A Study in the History of English Criminal Procedure (New York, 1937), pp. 150–4. Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, p. 58. Admonitio generalis 789, MGH Cap. i:22, pp. 56–7, c. 45 (citing the ‘Concilium Africanum’); Concilium Turonense 813, MGH Conc. 2:38, p. 291, c. 34.

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Justice and the legal system In contrast, the powerful were sometimes explicitly given favoured access to courts. The existence of Merovingian royal placita concerned with relatively minor property disputes suggests that magnates already had fairly open access to royal justice.244 Charlemagne in one capitulary ordered that ‘people of good birth’ (homines boni generis) who had committed crimes should be brought to him.245 In 811 he reserved cases involving ‘bishops, abbots, counts and the more powerful’ to himself, while the count of the palace dealt with those involving the ‘poor and less powerful’.246 Louis the Pious promised speedy justice, particularly to ‘people who have commended themselves to us’, and several rulers allowed legal advantages to royal vassi.247 Such privileges were rarely justiied explicitly: the claim in the Lorsch Annals for 802 that poorer vassi were more liable to bribery when acting as missi is a rare exception.248 Instead it seems simply to have been assumed that powerful men should have a favoured legal position. Capitularies and descriptions of cases also show numerous legal abuses by the powerful.A gendered dimension is visible too: a number of women alleged unjust treatment in the law-courts.249 Widows are frequently seen as legally vulnerable in the capitularies. A capitulary of Louis the Pious speciically linked together ‘widows, orphans and pauperes’ as groups who might be unable to produce witnesses.250 This vulnerability apparently overrode social status. Paschasius relates the story of a widow in Italy, who, despite being ‘noble’, was still legally defrauded and eventually murdered;251 the ‘wary widow’ Erkanfrida, who came from the lesser nobility, had to go to elaborate lengths to try and ensure her testamentary wishes were carried out.252

244

245 246 247

248

249

250 251 252

Paul Fouracre, ‘“Placita” and the settlement of disputes in later Merovingian Francia’, in Davies and Fouracre, Settlement, pp. 23–43, at p. 26. Capitulare Aquisgranense, MGH Cap. i:77, p. 171, c. 12. Capitulare de iustitiis faciendis, MGH Cap. i:80, p. 176, c. 2 (Fouracre, ‘Placita’, p. 26). Concessio generalis, MGH Cap. i:159, p. 321, c. 3; Pippini capitulare italicum, MGH Cap. i:102, p. 210, c. 10; Karolomanni capitulare Vernense 884, MGH Cap. ii:287, p. 373, c. 4. Jürgen Hannig, ‘Pauperiores vassi de infra palatio? Zur Entstehung der karolingischen Königsbotenorganisation’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 91 (1983), 309–74, at p. 311. See for example Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement’, pp. 56–9; McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, pp. 1087–92. Cf. Pauline Staford, ‘La Mutation familiale: A suitable case for caution’, in Hill and Swan, Community, pp. 103–25, at p. 115: ‘Women’s landholding … is over-represented in disputes.’ Capitula legibus addenda 818–19, MGH Cap. i:139, p. 281, c. 3. Cf. below, p. 166. EA 1:26, cols. 1601–2. Janet L. Nelson, ‘The wary widow’, in Davies and Fouracre, Property and Power, pp. 82–113.

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Central power Moral responsibilities of judges Since earthly justice was necessary to ensure the safety of kingdoms, rulers had to take the initiative in redressing such injustice.253 There was a particular focus on judges; both Alcuin and Jonas in their lay mirrors stated the ruler’s responsibility to appoint good judges.254 Carolingian rulers repeatedly threatened to dismiss counts and judges who failed to administer justice.The irst Saxon capitulary had loss of oice as the penalty for counts who concealed bandits or who took ‘reward against the innocent’, while Pippin of Italy condemned judges who delayed justice or judged unjustly for the sake of friendship or bribes.255 In 829 Louis wanted his missi to replace bad scabini wherever they found them.256 Capitularies demanded that those responsible for judging be of good moral character.257 Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis contains a long passage on judges, based on Isidore’s Sententiae, that summarises the faults that judges must avoid.258 They should not accept gifts, show favouritism or hatred, or act from fear. They should not delay justice; they should not be stupid, wicked or irascible. They must not have evil subordinates, since they themselves would be held responsible for their faults.259 Such demands are repeated in the capitularies.260 The Admonitio generalis, for example, states: those to whom the power of judging has been given are to judge justly … not with regard to gifts … nor with regard to lattery, nor with regard to respect for persons … For irst the judge is diligently to learn the law … lest he wander from the path of truth by ignorance. And when he perceives the right judgement, he is to beware that he does not turn away from it, either through lattery of someone, or love of whatever friend or fear of some powerful man or a gift.261

Alcuin’s demand that counts have good subordinates was also made by both Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.262 253 254 255

256 257 258 260

261 262

McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, pp. 1075–6, 1083–9. DVV 20, col. 628; DIL 2:24, col. 219. Capitulatio de partibus Saxonis, MGH Cap. i:26, p. 70, cc. 24, 28; Pippini Italiae regis capitulare, MGH Cap. i:91, p. 192, c. 7. Capitulare missorum Wormatiense 829, MGH Cap. ii:192, p. 15, c. 2. Ganshof, ‘Impact of Charlemagne’, pp. 56–7. See Chapter 1, pp. 5–6. 259 DVV 20, cols. 628–9. Harald Siems, ‘Bestechliche und ungerechte Richter in frühmittelalterlichen Rechtsquellen’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo (secoli V–VIII), 7–13 aprile 1994, 2 vols., Settimane 42 (Spoleto, 1995), Vol. i, pp. 509–67, at pp. 556–9 lists many of the passages. MGH Cap. i:22, p. 58, c. 63. Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 96, c. 25; Capitula de missis instruendis 829, MGH Cap. ii:187, p. 9.

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Justice and the legal system Most texts that discuss judges repeat variants of these themes. Bribery, in particular, was central to the idea of the abuse of justice, unlike in the Merovingian period.263 Jürgen Hannig demonstrates that the comments of the Lorsch Annals 802 about Charlemagne avoiding using poorer vassi as missi, lest they take bribes, is largely an ideological statement about Charlemagne’s concern for justice.264 A throwaway comment by Paulinus on God, meanwhile, shows how normal the problem was: ‘that most equitable judge will come, who accepts the person of no power [nullus potens], whose palace no bishop, no abbot, no count will be able to corrupt with gold or silver’.265 Jonas condemns judges who think that taking gifts is acceptable provided that they nevertheless judge rightly, while Theodulf contrasts the single sin of selling justice with the double sin of selling injustice.266 Yet Theodulf ’s poem on justice not only gives a graphic picture of the problems of ‘ierce gifts’ in the judicial system (he claims that even the court doorkeepers took bribes), but indirectly demonstrates why such behaviour was common.267 Gift-exchange was a normal part of social relations: one litigant, ofering a gift to Theodulf, states: ‘If you should receive what I give, you will rightly give what I ask.’268 Such behaviour was a way of recognising the status of judges.269 How could the giving of such customary gifts to the settlers of disputes therefore be distinguished from bribes?270 Even Theodulf admitted that in order to avoid being ‘striking’ (notabilis) he accepted small gifts when acting as a missus.271 A sermon on alms-giving from the sermonary of Salzburg urged its hearers to ‘propitiate’ God the judge by making donations (in this case, to the poor).272 It is perhaps not surprising that when capitularies banned counts and judges receiving gifts, they did not prohibit litigants ofering them.273 Fear of the powerful and favouritism could be equal threats to impartial justice.274 Agobard complained to Count Matfrid that many people thought they would be able to escape from prosecution at the palace 263

264 266 268 270 272

273

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Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, p. 777. Siems, ‘Bestechliche Richter’, pp. 546–51 lists the few references in Merovingian normative texts. Hannig, ‘Pauperiores vassi’, pp. 366–74. 265 LE 62, col. 271. DIL 2:24, col. 219; Paraenesis, 329–36, p. 502. 267 Paraenesis, 16, 429–34, pp. 494, 504. Ibid., 232, p. 499. 269 Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, pp. 54–6. Innes, State, p. 131. 271 Paraenesis, 275–90, p. 501. James C. McCune, ‘Four Pseudo-Augustinian sermons De concupiscientia fugienda from the Carolingian sermonary of Würzburg’, Revue d’études augustiennes et patristiques 52 (2006), 391–431, at p. 401. See for example Capitula e canonibus excerpta 813, MGH Cap. i:78, p. 174, c. 10; Capitula a missis dominicis ad comites directa, MGH Cap. i:85, p. 184, c. 2. Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, pp. 784–6.

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Central power court via friends and relatives, and that Matfrid himself was seen by many as a ‘wall’, protecting those he favoured from Louis the Pious’ correction.275 Theodulf denounces judges inluenced by their wives or ministri (subordinate oicials) and also warns against the efects of lattery.276 Again, the emphasis is on the judge’s responsibility: not until 891 did a capitulary speciically prohibit threatening or killing judges, although the irst Saxon capitulary 100 years earlier had already penalised killing counts.277 Capitularies frequently demanded that judges should know and use the written law.278 They also warned them not to delay cases, particularly in favour of feasts or hunting; the same theme is seen in Jonas’ work.279 Placita had to be held regularly, but the number of placita in which all free men of the county had to participate was repeatedly limited, although the better born and comital vassi of the count could be expected to attend more frequently.280 There was particular concern about the vulnerable: judges had to ensure justice for speciic social groups, often including widows, orphans and pauperes. Jonas and Alcuin cite Isidore of Seville’s comment: ‘The poor are more gravely lacerated by wicked judges than by the cruellest enemies. For there is no thief so desirous of the things of others as an iniquitous judge.’281 Charlemagne wanted representatives provided for those unable to plead for themselves through inirmity or ignorance.282 Hincmar used the Old Testament example of judges sitting at the gates to argue that they should be accessible to all.283 Delays to cases were seen as particularly afecting the poor: several capitularies demanded that the cases of widows, wards, orphans and pauperes be dealt with irst during a session, or not delayed, and Theodulf also wanted cases involving minors given priority.284 Theodulf ’s Paraenesis is the most detailed picture of the moral demands on judges. He urged prayer before a court session started,285 and warned 275 277

278 279

280 281 282

283 284

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De iniusticiis, p. 226. 276 Paraenesis, 307, 675–735, pp. 501, 510–12. Widonis imperatoris capitulare Papiense legibus addendum 891, MGH Cap. ii:224, p. 109, c. 9; Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, MGH Cap. i:26, p. 70, c. 30. Siems, ‘Bestechliche Richter’, p. 557. See for example Duplex legationis edictum 789, MGH Cap. i:23, p. 63, c. 17; Capitula de causis diversis, MGH Cap. i:49, p. 135, c. 1; DIL 2:24, col. 219. Estey, ‘Scabini’, pp. 120–1; Ganshof, Frankish Institutions, p. 78. DIL 2:24, col. 221; DVV 20, col. 628 quoting Isidore, Sententiae, iii.52.7–9, p. 306. Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 93, c. 9. Cf. Pippini Italiae regis capitulare, MGH Cap. i:91, p. 192, c. 5. Ad episcopos 13, col. 1015. See for example Concilium Vernense 755, MGH Cap. i:14, p. 37, c. 23; Capitula a missis dominicis ad comites directa, MGH Cap. i:85, p. 184, c. 2; Paraenesis, 621–4, p. 509. Paraenesis, 357–70, p. 503.

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Justice and the legal system against drunkenness, with a satirical portrait of the hung-over judge.286 One of Charlemagne’s capitularies demanded that the count fast while holding placita and, hinting at wider problems, banned anyone drunk from presenting or witnessing a case.287 Theodulf is also unique among Carolingian authors in detailing the skills required of a good judge. He must strike a balance between deciding cases slowly, which might lead to sluggishness, and too rapidly, which might lead to error.288 He had to control the litigants and the court room carefully, but avoid violence.289 He should ‘skilfully’ (sollers) ask witnesses about ‘their reputation and birth, their names and character, their origins and loyalty’.290 By quiet and protacted deliberation with a few men, Theodulf ’s ideal judge was able to deal with even a complex case correctly.291 While Theodulf reveals the technical demands of a judge’s role, the views of other moralists are far more basic. Dhuoda simply tells William: ‘Love justice so that you may appear just in cases’ and Hincmar also saw the king’s role as appointing counts and judges who ‘hate avarice and love justice’.292 While a judge must know the law, the other requirements made of him were a matter of character more than competence; as Jonas claimed: ‘it is not to be doubted that knowledge of judging rightly is conferred by God on mortals’.293 Justice and mercy Publicity was important to Carolingian justice: the guilty must receive obvious punishment.294 One of Charlemagne’s later capitularies demanded that every count and judge have a prison and gallows, and the Carmen de Timone comite praises Timo for his hanging and mutilation of criminals.295 In contrast, there was less moral concern about mercy. ‘Acts of mercy’ played an important role in narratives of dispute settlement, but these were gracious concessions by the victorious party to a submissive opponent, not actions by a judge.296 Displays of mercy by rulers to ofending magnates were also common, but not inevitable.Warren Brown contrasts 286 287 288 289 290 291 293 295 296

Ibid., 399–420, p. 504. Capitulare missorum 803, MGH Cap. i:40, p. 116, c. 15. Paraenesis, 611–14, p. 509. Cf. Council of Tribur 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, p. 225, c. 22. Paraenesis, 631–74, pp. 509–10. Ibid., 745–6, p. 512: ‘famamque genusque … nomina seu mores, et loca sive idem’. Ibid., 667–74, p. 510. 292 LM 4:8, p. 154; De ordine 10, p. 50. DIL 2:24, col. 218. 294 McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, p. 1089. Capitulare Aquisgranense, MGH Cap. i:77, p. 171, c. 11; Brown, Unjust Seizure, p. 3. Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 125–34.

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Central power the harsh treatment of Tassilo and Count Cotehram in Bavaria with Ottonian practices.297 Views on mercy are also, of course, historically speciic. For some ofences, Carolingian rulers considered blinding merciful, while Wala’s leniency in simply imposing penance on a murderous justiciar seems unsuitable to modern sensibilities.298 Instructions for judges in capitularies generally do not stress mercy, although a few texts remind their audience of the Gospel statement that God will judge them as they judge others.299 Alcuin, Jonas and Dhuoda also cite the same verse in their mirrors, but while Alcuin and Dhuoda both explicitly tell their addressee to be merciful in judgement, Jonas says very little about the need for judicial mercy.300 Where they do mention mercy, moralists are often cautious. Alcuin, for example, tells Guy: ‘Mercy and discipline ought to be in a judge, since one without the other cannot be well. For if there were mercy alone, it creates security to subjects for sinning. Again, if only discipline were always present, the delinquent is turned to desperation and the judge will not merit mercy from God.’301 Hincmar similarly states: ‘there is just mercy [misericordia] and there is also unjust mercy’; when the term misericordia (for the king’s power of pardon) begins to appear in ninth-century capitularies, there is an emphasis on its discretionary use and the idea of rationabilis (reasonable) misericordia.302 Theodulf in Paraenesis starts from the same position, saying: ‘Let not law make you cruel, nor pity sluggish, for it is harmful if there is more or less than equity.’303 He is exceptional, however, in proclaiming that he wished to be a judge who saved those due to be punished.304 Parties and witnesses In contrast to this extensive discussion of judges, far less is said in Carolingian moral texts about the responsibilities of other participants in 297 298 299

300 301 302

303

304

Ibid., pp. 134–5, 206. On blinding see Chapter 3, p. 109; on Wala, McKitterick, ‘Perceptions of justice’, pp. 1088–9. Variations on Matthew 7:2 (‘you will be judged by the judgement by which you judged’) are quoted by, for example, Missi cuiusdam admonitio, MGH Cap. i:121, p. 240; Council of Pîtres 869, MGH Conc. 4:31, p. 359, c. 11. DIL 2:24, col. 220; DVV 8, 20, cols. 618, 628; LM 4:8, p. 158. DVV 7, col. 618. Hincmar, Libellus expostulationis, Council of Douzy 871, MGH Conc. 4:37b, p. 483, c. 35 quoting from Ambrose, Expositio psalmi cxviii, viii:25; see Ambrose, Expositio psalmi cxviii, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 62 (Vienna, 1913), p. 165. He uses the same passage in Chapter 19 of De regis, col. 846, entitled ‘On discretion in having mercy’. Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanour, pp. 242–3. Paraenesis, 863–4, p. 515: ‘Non ius crudelem, non det miseratio segnum, / Namque aequo si sit plusve minusve, nocet.’ Paraenesis, 881–2, p. 515: ‘Ille ego sim, redimam miserorum qui agmina multa, / Ille ego sim, plures qui cruce, clade levem’ (‘Let me be the one who redeems the numerous band of the wretched, the one who relieves many from the cross and destruction).

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Justice and the legal system the legal system. Perjury by witnesses was, however, regarded as very serious; indeed the Capitulare missorum generale from 802 called it the ‘worst crime’. Jonas quotes Bede: those who bear false witness for money ‘sell God’, and are thus implictly like Judas.305 Perjury was one of the few ofences for which Carolingian legislation prescribed mutilation (the loss of a hand) as a punishment for free men, whereas earlier Frankish law had demanded only a ine.306 Both Alcuin and Jonas in their mirrors quote Isidore saying that perjury is injurious to God as well as judges and the innocent.307 Alcuin adds: ‘he who ofers false testimony against his neighbour will have his light extinguished on the last day’.308 Yet although perjury was strongly condemned, its meaning was not necessarily known. The Admonitio generalis and Theodulf both complained about those who thought that only certain kind of false oaths were perjury.309 Jonas, a generation later, still met the same problem: It is thought by certain people that only he who swears a falsity upon the bones of some holy man, or upon relics or upon the altar or the gospel, should be held guilty of the crime of perjury. But he who calls upon God as a witness for the sake of whatever matter, either great or small … should be held as free from perjury.310

Jonas also complained about those who ‘believe themselves not to sin or almost not to sin, unless they should conirm to be true by swearing what they falsly stated’.311 He was unusual in pointing out one of the root causes of perjury, condemning those who corrupted witnesses with ‘small presents’ (munusculi).312 Despite the many capitularies condemning perjury, only two late capitularies of Charlemagne speciically prohibit the bribing of witnesses.313 The Council of Tours in 813 simply wanted to prevent ‘vile and unworthy people’ from testifying, as they could be bribed so cheaply.314 Charlemagne’s demands that no-one was to bring arms to a mallus or 305

306

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308 310 313

314

MGH Cap. i:33, p. 98, c. 36; DIL 2:26, col. 226, quoting Bede, In Lucae evangelium expositio, vi.22.5–6; see Bede, In Lucae evangelium expositio, ed. David Hurst, Bedae venerabilis opera. Pars II, 3: Opera exegetica, CCSL 120 (Turnhout, 1983), pp. 5–425, at p. 374. Heinrich Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1892), Vol. ii, pp. 681–2; Capitulare Haristallense 779, MGH Cap. i:20, p. 49, c. 10. DVV 21, col. 629; and DIL 2:26, col. 226 quoting Isidore, Sententiae, iii.5.2, p. 310: ‘Falsidicus testis tribus est personis obnoxius: primum Deo, cujus praesentiam contemnit; deinde judici, quem mentiendo fallit; postremo innocenti, quem falso testimonio laedit.’ (‘The falsely speaking witness is answerable to three persons: irst to God, whose presence he despises; then to the judge, whom he deceives by lying; at last to the innocent, whom he injures by false testimony.’) DVV 21, col. 629. 309 MGH Cap. i:22, p. 58, c. 64; Paraenesis, 813–44, p. 514. DIL 2:25, col. 221. 311 Ibid. 2:26, col. 225. 312 Ibid. Capitulare Aquisgranense 809, MGH Cap. i:61, p. 148, c. 6; Capitulare de iustitiis faciendis, MGH Cap. i:80, p. 176, c. 3. See above, p. 162.

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Central power placitum and that no-one should defend someone ‘unjustly’ at a placitum hint at more violent problems of intimidation and undue inluence in the courts.315 A capitulary in 810, for example, states: ‘Let whoever should want to defend another unjustly in a placitum incur the legitimate penalty, whoever’s man [homo] he may be, whether of the lord emperor or his sons and daughters or other powerful men.’316 Some later texts saw problems of inluence arising at earlier stages. Charles the Bald in 853 ordered that no-one was to conceal a bandit: ‘from friendship or kinship or love or fear’; twenty years later he discussed in some detail the procedure for dealing with a suspect ‘if he is such that either relatives or his men (because of vengeance) do not want or do not dare to accuse him’.317 Conclusion Paul Fouracre, comparing Carolingian justice with that of the tenth and eleventh centuries, comments: ‘there were aspects of Carolingian justice which suggest that it did in principle have a public morality, and, above all, that it had a framework within which that morality could be expressed, which was lacking [in] the later period’.318 Carolingian texts are indeed consistent, not to say repetitive, on the moral norms of the administrative and judicial system. Beyond the obvious belief that ‘justice’ was a Good Thing, capitularies, moral tracts and narrative sources largely concentrated on the same generalised ethical demands: judgement without respects of persons, concern for the poor and vulnerable, and the avoidance of bribery and perjury. Discussion of counts and counsellors shows similar repetition. Alongside these demands for public virtue ran an acute awareness of abuses of the system, and of the misbehaviour of highly placed laymen and clerics. This is conirmed by some speciic cases. For example, a claim on the villa of Perrecy in Burgundy by Bishop Wulfad of Bourges may have been timed to take advantage of a relative of his becoming a missus in the area.319 There are several examples known where missi sitting in judgement had a personal interest in a particular case, or testiied in it.320 315 316 317

318 320

Ganshof, ‘Impact of Charlemagne’, pp. 60–1. Capitula de missorum oiciis 810, MGH Cap. i:66, p. 155, c. 5. Capitulare missorum Silvacense 853, MGH Cap. ii:260, p. 272, c. 4; Capitulare Carisiacense 873, MGH Cap. ii:278, p. 344, c. 3: ‘si talis est, quem aut parentes aut propter faidam homines accusare noluerint aut ausi non fuerint’. Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, p. 791. 319 Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement’, pp. 53–5. Jürgen Hannig, ‘Zur Funktion der karolingischen “missi dominici” im Bayern und in den südostlichen Grenzgebieten’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung 101 (1984), pp. 256–300, at pp. 266–7, 280; Wormald, Making, pp. 78–80; Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 96–7.

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Conclusion Most modern scholars have therefore stressed the shortcomings of Carolingian government and justice. Fouracre sees attempts to improve justice as largely focusing on moral rhetoric and on the conduct of the judge, and lacking the practical changes and detailed instructions that would have been needed to introduce new systems.321 It is not clear, however, that more emphasis on systems would necessarily have prevented abuses. Structural changes that were made did not solve the problems; there were soon complaints about the behaviour of the newly introduced missi and scabini, similar to those about counts.322 The ‘professionalisation’ of law later in the Middle Ages also made little diference; as Susan Reynolds comments: ‘People at the bottom of society came of badly in both systems.’323 Some scholars have seen problems of injustice and maladministration in the period as being due to failures of the nobility. Régine Le Jan claims that they could not adhere to the ideals of justice in moral texts without undermining the basis of their power, while Jürgen Hannig sees failures in government as due to the ‘archaic warrior robber mentality’ of both secular and clerical magnates’.324 Such views ignore the fact that Carolingian rulers, too, were liable to make judgements that helped reinforce their political power, and that oicial corruption is still endemic in some modern western societies.325 Several more fundamental problems are visible. Le Jan rightly points out an inherent conlict between a ‘traditional’ concept of justice by compromise, which aimed to restore peace and social equilibrium, and a ‘classical’ ideal of repressive justice, focusing on punishment of the guilty.326 Carolingian rulers increased the ‘penal’ aspects of the system of justice, but did not fundamentally overturn traditional practices.327 For all the stress by moralists that legal judgements should not be made according to ‘persons’ it was still taken for granted that justice relected social divisions. Charles the Bald in the Edict of Pîtres in 864 speciically promised that ‘law and justice would be preserved to all, to each individual in his ordo’.328 Such socially diferentiated practices were probably essential for the efective functioning of the Carolingian system at the local level. 321 323

324

325 326 327

Fouracre, ‘Carolingian justice’, pp. 779–80. 322 Ibid., pp. 789–90. Susan Reynolds, ‘Medieval law’, in Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), The Medieval World (London, 2001), pp. 485–502, at p. 498. Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, p. 84; Jürgen Hannig, Consensus idelium: Frühfeudale Interpretationen des Verhältnisses von Königtum und Adel am Beispiel des Frankenreiches, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 27 (Stuttgart, 1982), p. 268. Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, pp. 80–3, Wormald, Making, pp. 83–4. Le Jan, ‘Justice royale’, pp. 47–61. Ibid., p. 85. 328 Edictum Pistense 864, MGH Cap. ii:273, p. 312, c. 3.

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Central power Judgements had to be implemented: even a royal edict might be diicult to enforce if its holder lacked support within the region.329 Susan Reynolds comments: ‘Collective judgement in conformity with good custom was clearly what was thought normal and right’;330 nevertheless, such collective decisions might simply relect the local interests of the powerful.331 The Carolingian political system worked via power-brokers, men with connections to both the court and individual counties.332 Truly ‘impersonal’ practices of justice or administration were incompatible with such local expectations. One modern precondition for unbiased justice, for example – that judges and juries should have no connections to the parties in a case – was not feasible when counts and missi were chosen precisely for their local inluence.Warren Brown sees the unusual judicial inluence and authority of Arn of Salzburg, for example, as due more to his personal prestige and ties than his oices.333 Perhaps an even greater diiculty was that the use of personal connections and inluence to beneit oneself and others was normal social practice, seen as entirely acceptable, if not admirable, elsewhere in society. It was thus peculiarly diicult to isolate particular activities as ones in which such forms of behaviour were morally transgressive. The impersonal action of counts was diicult to ensure in a system where family background was a legitimate justiication for priority in gaining oice.334 Similarly, it is hardly surprising that those who owed their position at court to royal favour, or their father’s inluence, might be tempted to give advice based on private interest rather than the ‘common good’. The same diiculties occurred within the judicial system, as a letter of Einhard to Count Robert shows. In this he enquired about the progress of the case of ‘our man [homo] Alafrid’, and claimed that the emperor was astonished that it had not yet been completed.335 At one level, such a letter may have been unproblematic, simply stressing the moral precept not to delay justice; at another it was probably intended to create in Robert the ‘fear of the powerful’ that judges were so often warned about. It was presumably impossible for kings to prevent the well-connected attempting to use their inluence in such ways; even Jonas did not tell Matfrid such behaviour was morally wrong. Instead, rulers and moralists took 329 330 331 332

333 335

Innes, State, p. 138. Cf. Fouracre, ‘Placita’, p. 38 on Bishop Praejectus of Clermont. Reynolds, ‘Medieval law’, p. 488. Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement’, p. 62. Matthew Innes,‘Practices of property in the Carolingian empire’, in Davis and McCormick, Long Morning, pp. 246–266, at p. 255. Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 102–23. 334 See above, pp. 150–1. Einhard, Epistola 7, MGH Epp. 5, p. 112.

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Conclusion the easier, if unrealistic, option of putting the burden of impartiality and honesty solely on judges, counts and courtiers, calling on them to ignore such approaches. Some scholars have seen Carolingian authors as having only very limited theories on power and its uses. Johannes Fried, in particular, has claimed that there was little concept of ‘public’ power, independent of the individual personality of the ruler or oicial.336 Fried’s views on public power have already been challenged by analyses of ninth-century thought on kingship, and by studies of the political terminology of Carolingian texts.337 My analysis conirms that an idea of ‘impersonal’ power and oice existed in the period, shown in the moral demands made about counts and judges. Beyond the general need for such men to be ‘God-fearing’, they are exhorted solely about their performance of their duties: their own way of life is irrelevant. This contrasts noticeably with the emphasis on the exemplary domestic life of men holding public oice in Roman texts.338 Similarly, counts, judges and courtiers are to make their decisions and give their advice impersonally, unafected by bribes, ‘hate’, ‘love’ and other ‘personal’ considerations. This language of impartiality is used about secular oicials, particularly judges, far more often than about clerics. It is only under Louis the Pious, for example, that we irst see references to the need for ecclesiastics not to be inluenced by friends, relatives and bribes.339 It is easy to show that Carolingian oicials and courtiers did not always abide by the demands of an impersonal ‘public’ morality: this was not however, due to an inability to conceptualise such a morality, or to repeat it incessantly. 336

337

338

339

Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’. Cf. Gerd Althof, ‘Staatsdiener oder Häupter des Staates: Fürstenverantwortung zwischen Reichsinteressen und Eigennutz’, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt, 1997), pp. 126–53. See for example Yves Sassier, ‘L’Utilisation d’un concept romain aux temps carolingiens: La res publica aux ixe et xe siècles’, Médiévales 15 (1988), 17–29; Depreux,‘Nithard’; Nelson,‘Kingship and empire’; Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘The perception of “power” and “state” in the early Middle Ages: The case of the Astronomer’s “Life of Louis the Pious”’, in Björn Weiler and Simon MacLean (eds.), Representations of Power in Medieval Germany 800–1500, International Medieval Research 16 (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 15–36. Kate Cooper, ‘Closely watched households:Visibility, exposure and private power in the Roman domus’, Past and Present 197 (2007), 3–33. Capitulare Olonnense 822 × 823, MGH Cap. i:157, p. 316, c. 1 (on grants of church property); Concilium Parisiense 829, MGH Conc. 2:50, pp. 623, 633, c. 16 (on selling church goods), c. 32 (on giving penance).

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Chapter 6

PERSONA L POWER

The role of personal power, derived from speciic social relationships, has been a key theme of early medieval research for several generations. The German ‘new constitutional history’, which developed in the 1930s, saw such personal ties as the key to all social structures: the Carolingian empire, like its contemporaries, was a Personenverbandsstaat (‘state’ based on personal ties rather than institutions).1 All forms of power in the Germanic world, scholars argued, could be derived from Herrschaft (lordship).2 This constitutional history paradigm has now been substantially undermined, although without entirely losing its grip.3 Nevertheless, scholars still agree that much power in Carolingian society was exercised and experienced through such relationships between individuals.4 Whether these ‘personal’ relationships were in practice deined or marked by particular social or emotional closeness is a diferent matter.5 Carolingian authors did not provide a systematic guide to social morality as Rather of Verona did in the late tenth century, when he set out the behaviour expected of social groups from parents and old men to soldiers and doctors.6 Many Frankish texts do provide information, however, on behavioural norms for both male and female elites within power relationships. In turn, this chapter will explore the expectations of relationships that male noblemen had with their household and dependants (particularly the unfree), with their lords and their own followers, 1

2

3 4

5 6

Walter Pohl, ‘Staat und Herrschaft im Frühmittelalter: Überlegungen zum Forschungsstand’, in Airlie, Pohl and Reimitz, Staat im Frühmittelalter, pp. 9–38 gives an overview of research on the topic. For a classic statement of such ideas see Walter Schlesinger, ‘Herrschaft und Gefolgschaft in der germanisch-deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte’, Historische Zeitschrift 176 (1953), 225–75. See Goetz, ‘Perception of “power”’, pp. 15–18. Innes, State is an important attempt to explore the role of personal relations in politics that does not rely on assumptions about a ‘Germanic’ past. Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals:The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994), pp. 25–8. Rather of Verona, Praeloquia, Books 1–2, pp. 5–76.

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Carolingian households and with their kin and friends. Although these conceptual categories are used for ease of analysis, however, it is important to realise that both moralising and legislative sources are sometimes vague on the exact social relationships involved.7 Moral norms on such ties drew from a particularly disparate range of traditions. Old and New Testament discussions of slavery and the treatment of workers difered substantially, for example.8 The classical Roman ideal of the aristocratic paterfamilias was rejected by some patristic writers, and valorised by others.9 Barbarian expectations of kin behaviour were embedded in the leges, but these were also inluenced by late Roman vulgar law.10 There was thus no coherent inheritance for Carolingian moralists to draw on, but instead a series of texts largely separated from their original social settings. Carol ing i an house hol d s Discussions of the extent of household power are complicated by the problems of pinning down the meaning of terms such as familia and domus.Various combinations of several diferent groups could be included within these terms and their Old High German translations: a man’s wife and children, his extended kindred, all his unfree dependants (whether they resided or not) or only those living within the household.11 In this section I will consider the treatment of household dependants and the unfree more generally (to the extent that texts treat them separately), with moral norms on a man’s relationships with his wife, children or more distant kin considered later.12 Control over the household was an ancient patriarchal form of power that remained fundamental to early Christian teaching.13 In contrast, Karl Kroeschell has demonstrated how little evidence there is for the 7

8

9 10

11

12 13

On the terminology for the unfree see below, p. 177; on the luidity of the term ‘lord’ see pp. 188–9. On the multiple meanings of servitium see Davies, ‘On servile status’, pp. 227–8 and below, p. 186. Margaret Davies, ‘Work and slavery in the New Testament: Impoverishment of traditions’, in John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheield Colloquium, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 207 (Sheield, 1995), pp. 315–47. Cooper, Fall, pp. 93–122. Alexander Callander Murray, Germanic Kinship Structure: Studies in Law and Society in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Studies and Texts (Pontiical Institute of Mediaeval Studies) 65 (Toronto, 1983), pp. 115–75. Cooper, Fall, pp. 108–10; Karl Kroeschell, Haus und Herrschaft im frühen deutschen Recht: Ein methodischer Versuch, Göttingen Rechtswissenschaftliche Studien 70 (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 28–36. See below, pp. 199–212. Kate Cooper,‘Approaching the holy household’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 15 (2007), 131–42 provides an overview of recent literature.

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Personal power existence of a uniied ‘house lordship’ (Hausherrschaft) in the early German period.14 The household and its orderly behaviour were a key image in Carolingian social thought, with a symbolic mirroring of domestic and royal authority.15 When Hincmar wrote his admonitory letter to Louis the German in 858, for example, he included a section on the care of his domus, adding that it was a maxim that ‘the familia will be kept according to the character of the dominus’.16 Some of Charlemagne’s capitularies show his determination to enforce domestic patriarchy as the basic building block of his kingdom.17 This domestic power was not solely male: some moralists saw it either as a joint responsibility of the married couple or as a particular responsibility of the wife.18 Jonas entitles one chapter of his mirror: ‘That married people should know they ought to exercise a pastoral ministry in their homes’.19 The Council of Meaux–Paris thought that powerful women (potentes feminae) were particularly responsible for preventing sexual immorality within their household.20 Part of Einhard’s grief at the death of his wife Emma is the daily loss that he felt ‘in all the administration of the domus and familia’.21 Dhuoda called Bernard the dominus of both herself and William, but also stressed her own maternal authority.22 Carolingian reforms occasionally impinged on male household authority; for example, the Admonitio generalis’ clauses restricting Sabbath work potentially afected the paterfamilias’ control of domestic labour.23 Yet although noblemen did not have exclusive control over their households, they nevertheless had important moral responsibilities for them. Paulinus tells Eric of Friuli: I beg that you announce to all those subject to you and of good will in your household [domus], from the greater to the lesser, the love and sweetness of the eternal kingdom, the bitterness and fear of hell, and that you are solicitous and alert about their salvation, since you will render account to God for all those who are subject to you, who are in your household.24

Jonas, too, stresses that married couples are responsible before God for the souls of all those ‘subject’ to them.25 In contrast to some late antique conduct guides, however, which give detailed moral instructions for 14 16 17

18 20 22

23

Kroeschell, Haus und Herrschaft. 15 Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’. Quierzy letter, c. 12, p. 420. Nelson, ‘Patriarchs’, citing the Missi cuiusdam admonito, MGH Cap. i:121, pp. 239–40; and the Capitulare missorum Aquisgranense primum 810, MGH Cap. i:64, pp. 153–4. Garver, Women, p. 123. 19 DIL 2:16, col. 197. See Chapter 4, p. 117. 21 Lupus, Epistola 3,Vol. i, p. 16. LM Prologue, 1:7, 3:1, pp. 46, 70, 84. Karen Cherewatuk, ‘Speculum matris: Duoda’s manual’, Florilegium 10 (1988–91), 49–63, at pp. 53–7; Nelson, ‘Dhuoda’, pp. 109–11. MGH Cap. i:22, p. 61, c. 81. 24 LE 29, cols. 225–6. 25 DIL 2:16, col. 197.

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The unfree household management, Carolingian lay mirrors are normally vague.26 Paulinus wanted dependants to be told to avoid drunkenness, while Jonas urges supervision to prevent them oppressing the poor or stealing from them.27 Jonas also condemns powerful men whose hunting on the Sabbath prevented both them and their servi from attending church and thus imperilled all their souls.28 His inluence may also be behind a similar chapter in the Council of Attigny 822, which condemned potentes who did not attend church services themselves, and prevented their familia from attending by demands for service.29 Apart from his concerns about drunkenness, Paulinus otherwise contented himself with the exhortation to Eric to ‘cherish your household’ (fovere domesticum).30 Dhuoda’s advice to William on household matters similarly remained at a very general level. She wanted him to be merciful ‘to those subjected to you’ and she also reminded William of the biblical example of Joseph, who ‘merited being loved above the others among the famuli of his master’.31 T he unf re e The unfree formed an important part of the familia: sources use a wide vocabulary for such dependants, including servi, ancillae, coloni, famuli and mancipia.The profusion of terms relects diferences in legal status, sex, and economic and social roles, although usage was not consistent.32 Coloni, for example, probably had an intermediate legal status. Carolingian legislation increasingly regarded them as unfree, but they apparently had some appeal to public courts, while both estate surveys and legal texts continue to refer to them separately.33 Mancipia, meanwhile, often has an economic rather than legal meaning: persons included in sales or gifts, whether free or unfree.34 Unfree men and women were used in a variety of roles: polyptychs mention the unfree settled on mansi (holdings) within estates and owing 26 28 30 32

33

34

Cooper, Fall, pp. 114–33. 27 LE 37, 38, cols. 236–7, 239; DIL 2:16, col. 199. DIL 2:23, col. 216. 29 MGH Conc. 2:42, p. 472, c. 5. LE 66, col. 281. 31 LM 3:3, 4:8, pp. 90, 158. Because of the problems in distinguishing between ‘serfdom’ and ‘slavery’ (see below, pp. 178–9), I have used ‘slave’ only for the classical period, using ‘unfree’ or the speciic terms in the sources for the discussion of Carolingian material. I have, however, kept ‘slavery’ as the abstract term for the system of subordination in both the classical and Carolingian period. Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Serfdom and the beginnings of a “seigneurial system” in the Carolingian period: A survey of the evidence’, Early Medieval Europe 2 (1993), 29–51, at pp. 35, 38–9; C. R. Whittaker, ‘Circe’s pigs: From slavery to serfdom in the later Roman world’, Slavery and Abolition 8 (1987), 88–122, at pp. 108–12. Jean-Pierre Devroey, ‘Men and women in early medieval serfdom: The ninth-century north Frankish evidence’, Past and Present 166 (2000), 3–30, at pp. 10–11.

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Personal power renders and labour services, but also mancipia non casata, the unfree who lived in their master’s household.35 As well as agricultural workers, others among the unfree, especially women, provided domestic services or worked at crafts.36 A capitulary of Charlemagne’s from 793 refers to servi and coloni who held beneices or were vassi, suggesting a relatively privileged status.37 The roles and locations of the unfree may also have varied within their life-cycle.38 The importance of the unfree to the Carolingian economy is diicult to assess; polyptychs show wide variations in the proportions of servile and free mansi on diferent estates, and there may have been broader regional diferences.39 Yet there were large numbers of the unfree in absolute terms. Some charters list dozens of mancipia given in a single donation, while Elipandus of Toledo claimed, without contradiction, that Alcuin controlled 20,000 servi.40 All churches were expected to own unfree dependants: the Council of Valence in 855 stated that laymen who built new churches should include three mancipia in the donation.41 Perhaps most revealingly, a capitulary on summoning the host from 806 refers to the man ‘found to be so poor that he has neither mancipia nor possession of his own lands’.42 There has been intensive scholarly debate on ‘the transition from slavery to serfdom’ and whether early medieval servi are best seen as slaves (simply objects of property) or serfs (people with more limited subjection to a lord).43 Such debates are crucially inluenced by the deinitions 35 36

37 38 39

40

41 43

Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 44–6, Devroey, ‘Men and women’, pp. 22–5. Devroey, ‘Men and women’, pp. 21–2; Carl I. Hammer, ‘Family and familia in early medieval Bavaria’, in Richard Wall (ed.), Family Forms in Historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 217–48, at pp. 222–4; Susan Mosher Stuard, ‘Ancillary evidence for the decline of medieval slavery’, Past and Present 149 (1995), 3–28, at pp. 14–15. Capitulare missorum, MGH Cap. i:25, p. 67, c. 4. Hammer, ‘Family and familia’, pp. 245–7; Devroey, ‘Men and women’, pp. 24–5. Werner Rösener, ‘Strukturformen der adeligen Grundherrschaft in der Karolingerzeit’, in Werner Rösener (ed.), Strukturen der Grundherrschaft im frühen Mittelalter, Veröfentlichungen des MaxPlanck-Instituts für Geschichte 92 (Göttingen, 1989), pp. 126–80, at pp. 176–9; Adriaan Verhulst, ‘The decline of slavery and the economic expansion of the early Middle Ages’, Past and Present 133 (1991), 195–203. Hammer, ‘Family and familia’, pp. 222–3; Nelson, ‘Wary widow’, p. 99. On Alcuin’s servi see Chapter 7, p. 218. MGH Conc. 3:33, p. 358, c. 9. 42 MGH Cap. i:48, pp. 134–5, c. 2. For discussions of the historiography, see Davies, ‘On servile status’, pp. 229–32; Alice Rio, ‘Freedom and unfreedom in early medieval Francia: The evidence of the legal formulae’, Past and Present 193 (2006), pp. 7–40, at pp. 8–12. Among those arguing for slavery in the period are Marc Bloch, Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages: Selected Essays, trans. William R. Beer, Publications of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA 8 (Berkeley, 1975); Pierre Bonnassie, From Slavery to Feudalism in South-Western Europe, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 1991); while those seeing serfdom as the more appropriate model include Hartmut Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei im frühen Mittelalter’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 42 (1986), 1–24; Devroey, ‘Men and women’.

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The unfree used: is legal status the key marker of slavery or are dehumanisation and alienation from society more signiicant?44 An awareness of the complex relationships between legal, social and economic status has led several historians to argue that the Carolingian unfree can be seen as either slaves or serfs.45 Views on the matter are also inluenced by the sources considered. As Alice Rio points out, very diferent images of the unfree are seen in laws and formularies, and ‘distinctions between free and unfree on a day-today basis were not too rigid’.46 She comments elsewhere: ‘what we do ind is a multiplicity of status and a multitude of grey areas, giving unfree people few rights rather than no rights’.47 Such multiple statuses probably make general contrasts between ‘slavery’ and ‘serfdom’ unhelpful. This variability must be borne in mind when we look at moral discussions of the treatment of servi. Additional complications arise because Carolingian moralists often cited texts composed in societies with substantially diferent forms of slavery: both the ‘classic’ Roman chattelslavery found in the New Testament and patristic writing, and an even older Israelite tradition where the treatment of slaves relected Jewish– gentile distinctions. Christian theologians from St Paul onwards expressed moral views both on slavery as an institution, and the practical relations of masters and slaves, following classical as well as Jewish traditions.With very few exceptions the early church saw slavery as morally acceptable.48 It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that only one Carolingian text – the Via regia of Smaragdus, abbot of St Mihiel – opposes slavery as an institution.49 The exceptional nature of Smaragdus’ statements has been noted before. Otto Eberhardt is probably right to see them as deriving from Smargadus’ emphasis on the equality of all before God; as the example of Jonas shows, however, such a belief in essential human equality did not necessarily lead to opposing slavery in principle.50Yet although Smaragdus speciically argues that Christians ought not to enslave those captured in wars,51 his comments on the unfree more generally are contradictory. As Eberhardt points out, these sections are separate in the manuscript tradition, although amalgamated in Migne’s edition.52 44 45 46 48

49 50 51

Rio, ‘Freedom’, p. 11. Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 47–9; Davies, ‘On servile status’, pp. 245–6. Rio, Legal Practice, pp. 211, 220. 47 Rio, ‘Freedom’, p. 38. Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge, 1996); Davies, ‘Work and slavery’. On the text see above, Chapter 2, p. 29. Eberhardt, Via regia, pp. 592–5. On Jonas see below, pp. 184–7. McCormick, Origins, pp. 750–1. 52 Eberhardt, Via regia, p. 593.

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Personal power At one point, Smaragdus states: ‘everyone ought to send servi away free, considering that nature does not subject them to him, but sin; for we are created equal by condition, but some are subjected to others by sin’.53 Smaragdus does not make clear, however, whether the sin that causes slavery is that of all humanity, of the master, or of the servus himself (patristic authors difered on this point).54 It is also uncertain whether he thinks all servi should be freed, since in the same passage he quotes Ecclesiasticus 33:31: ‘if a servus is faithful to you, let him be to you like your soul, treat him as if your brother’. When Smaragdus adds that God should be honoured ‘whether in the servi subjected to you, or the wealth conceded to you, by making freemen from the former and giving alms from the latter’, the analogy implicitly suggests that only some needed to be freed.55 Smaragdus himself, as abbot of St Mihiel, was in charge of a number of servi;56 it is perhaps not surprising that the more radical implications of his own ideas were only tentatively expressed. If the principle of slavery was almost universally accepted in the Carolingian period, at least by those who were in a position to write on such matters, how were such people to be treated? Barbarian laws on the sale and theft of the unfree see them irmly as property, and this view continues in the Carolingian period.57 Mancipia are treated in legal transactions as objects to be bought and sold;58 servi were more often tied to the land, but were nevertheless still property. Charlemagne’s Divisio regnorum from 806, for example, distinguishes between immobiles – such as lands and servi casati, which should not be transferred between kingdoms – and goods, which could be, such as precious metals, arms and mancipi non casati.59 Frequent legislation about runaway servi and coloni, and condemnations of those harbouring them, also show them as possessions.60 Hrabanus, for example, told his chorbishop Reginbald that it was acceptable to pray for the soul of a runaway servus who died, but a live runaway must be warned to return to his master on pain of anathema. Hrabanus was aware that not all the unfree ran away from wicked motives, commenting: ‘how great is the diference between the man who led through pride and him who led through necessity, forced by the cruelty of his master’, and quoting the biblical example of Hagar, oppressed by Sarah.Yet he points out that even she was made to return to her master by an angel.61 53 55 57 59 60

Smaragdus, Via regia 30, col. 968. 54 Freedman, Images, pp. 73–9. Smaragdus, Via regia 30, col. 968. 56 Eberhardt, Via regia, p. 594. Bonnassie, From Slavery, pp. 17–18. 58 Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, p. 34. Divisio regnorum, MGH Cap. i:45, pp. 128–9, c. 11. Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 35–9. 61 Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 30, MGH Epp. 5, p. 452, c. 5.

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The unfree Although the unfree were property, however, there were sometimes moral concerns about their sale. In particular, their sale to Jews or pagans was often condemned by capitularies and church councils, following in a late antique tradition that condemned sales of Christians to ‘barbarians’.62 Ostensibly, moralists were concerned about the souls of such Christians, as Cathwulf ’s letter to Charlemagne shows.63 Yet there was also a noticeable military and economic aspect: such sales were often implicitly combined with concern about other valuable resources being sold to ‘enemies’.64 This is expressed particularly clearly by the Council of Meaux–Paris in 845–6: Christian and Jewish merchants of this kingdom, who … conduct pagan mancipia to the hands of our inidel and very savage enemies, (as a result of which these unhappy servi, who if they were gained by Christians could be saved, perish miserably and increase the very great numbers of our enemies), should be restrained by our pious princes and forced to sell within Christian borders, lest by such horrendous cruelty and open inidelity and damnation of souls, God may be exasperated and the strength of the enemy increased.65

This predominantly practical concern about sales to pagans might explain some high-proile exceptions when circumstances demanded. Charles the Bald, in a peace treaty with the Vikings in 866, for example, agreed to return or ransom mancipia taken by the Vikings who subsequently escaped; in 869 part of the ransom paid to the Saracens for the return of Bishop Roland of Arles was 150 mancipia.66 The Edict of Pîtres in 864 shows the clear limits of concerns about the sale of the unfree. Charles the Bald, following ‘ancient laws’, decreed that children of a man born before he enslaved himself for debt should remain free, and that servi should not be sold overseas or into foreign lands.67 He also demanded the observation of Gregory the Great’s instructions about those ransomed from pagan captors: those ransomed by individuals should pay back their purchase price to them, those ransomed by the church did not need to pay. In contrast, Charles cited the instruction of Exodus 21:2 (that those enslaved for debt should be released freely after six years) only as a moral and allegorical lesson: ‘this holy story both builds up morally those observing it, and enlightens those understanding it with a higher sense’.68 62

63

64 66 67

Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei’, pp. 4, 15; Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, p. 39; Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, p. 63. MGH Epp. 4, p. 503. On this letter see Joanna Story, ‘Cathwulf, kingship and the royal abbey of Saint-Denis’, Speculum 74 (1999), 1–21. Cf. Agobard, De baptismo. McCormick, Origins, p. 748. 65 MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 124, c. 76. AB 866, 869, pp. 81, 106. Edictum Pistense 864, MGH Cap. ii:273, pp. 325–327, c. 34. 68 Ibid., p. 326.

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Personal power Since the unfree were property, masters controlled not only their labour, but their bodies. Unlike late Roman law, early medieval secular law accepted the independent right of masters to kill the unfree.69 A few church councils from the sixth century onwards, however, condemned their arbitrary killing. The Council of Mainz in 847, for example, quoted both the prohibition from the Council of Agde in 506 on the killing of servi ‘without the knowledge of a judge’, and the decision of the Council of Elvira in 306 on the penance for a mistress (domina) who kills her ancilla by an over-enthusiastic beating.70 Less lethal violence, including even mutilation, was clearly a legitimate part of lordship over the unfree;71 Einhard wrote several letters asking that servi who had led to the shrine of St Marcellinus and Peter after committing ofences might be spared physical punishment.72 Jonas quotes a saying of Jesus: ‘That slave who knew the will of his master and did not prepare and did not do according to his will, will be beaten with many blows; but he who did not know it and did something worthy of blows, with few blows.’73 Corporal punishment was a routine penalty in the capitularies for the unfree (servi and increasingly coloni), as opposed to the free.74 Liability to such violence was not, however, a deining characteristic of the unfree; as Alice Rio points out, legally free dependants may have been equally vulnerable to such treatment by their superiors.75 A more general blurring of ideas on corporal punishment is also visible.The classical Roman tradition that saw whipping as a dishonour, restricted solely to the unfree, had already been altered by an early Christian ideology that also accepted such punishment for children, and then for monks.76 Carolingian rulers were also prepared to use mutilations as punishments for free men, including those of high status.77 In the midst of this legitimising of violence, Jonas is unusual in specifically condemning the excessive punishment of servi: 69

70 72 74 76

77

Richard P. Saller, ‘The hierarchical household in Roman society: A study of domestic slavery’, in M. L. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage (London, 1996), pp. 112–29, at pp. 118–19; Bonnassie, From Slavery, pp. 20–1. Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei’, p. 12 sees Charlemagne as banning such homicide in Admonitio generalis 789, MGH Cap. i:22, p. 59, c. 67, but this does not speciically mention the unfree. MGH Conc. 3:14, pp. 172–3, c. 22. 71 Bonnassie, From Slavery, pp. 19–20. Einhard, Epistolae 48–9, p. 133–4. 73 DIL 1:19, col. 158, quoting Luke 12:47–8. Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 36, 39. 75 Rio, ‘Freedom’, pp. 11–12, 33. Saller, ‘Hierarchical household’, pp. 127–8. On the use of corporal punishments for monks, see Benedict of Nursia, Regula sancti Benedicti, ed. Jean Neufville, La Règle de Saint Benoît, 2 vols., Sources chrétiennes 181–2 (Paris, 1972), cc. 23, 28 (Vol. ii, pp. 542, 550). On the corporal punishment of sons, see below, pp. 207–8. See Chapter 5, p. 169 on amputation of the hand as a punishment for perjury; Chapter 3, p. 109 on blinding.

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The unfree If therefore servi are equal to masters by nature, indeed, since they are equal, let masters not think they are going to have impunity for themselves, when in wild indignation, and inlamed against the errors of servi with the fury of a roused mind, they are excessive [nimii] with them, either cutting with very savage blows, or maiming with amputation of limbs, since they have one God in the heavens.78

Bodily control by masters of the unfree also extended to their sexual behaviour. By the fourth century, if not earlier, the unfree were increasingly allowed to live in family groups.79 Both legal and narrative texts from Merovingian Francia begin to describe relationships between the unfree using terms such as coniugium and matrimonium, implying that they were seen as marriages; this contrasts with the normal Roman term for such slave relationships, contubernium, which indicated a purely de facto sexual partnership.80 Carolingian texts similarly recognise the unfree as capable of marriage, although much legislation on this topic is restrictive, aimed at limiting whom a servus might marry.81 It is also possible that lords may have arranged the marriages of the unfree subject to them.82 Nevertheless, lords did not have unrestricted freedom: some capitularies and councils prohibit the dissolution of unfree marriages and the breaking-up of families.83 Two of Einhard’s letters intercede for servi who have married or wish to, stressing that the lord’s rights should be tempered by mercy.84 Polyptychs suggest that unequal marriages, especially of servi and colonae, may have been quite common, and possibly provided improved status for the children.85 Some Frankish legislation discussed unfree marriages in genderneutral terms: Pippin III in 757 speciically stated that there was ‘one law about men and women’ when deciding whether the marriage between a free person and an unfree could be dissolved.86 Normally, however, both practices and moral norms were asymmetric. Marriages between free men and unfree women are rarely attested, but there is considerable evidence, both from formulae and charters, for marriages between free 78 80

81 82

83

84 86

DIL 2:22, col. 215. 79 Whittaker, ‘Circe’s pigs’, pp. 90–4. Isabelle Réal, Vies de saints, vie de famille: Représentation et système de la parenté dans le royaume mérovingien (481–751) d’après les sources hagiographiques (Turnhout, 2001), pp. 284–97. Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 34–8. Carl I. Hammer, ‘A slave marriage ceremony from early medieval Germany’, Slavery and Abolition 16 (1995), 242–9. Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei’, pp. 13–14; Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, p. 37. Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 41–2: a St Gall charter shows the separation of man and wife by a sale. Einhard, Epistolae 46, 60, pp. 133, 139. 85 Goetz, ‘Serfdom’, p. 45. Decretum Compendiense 757, MGH Cap. i:15, p. 38, c. 8.

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Personal power women and unfree men. For a woman to have sexual relations with her own unfree dependant however was regarded as abhorrent87: Dhuoda praises the biblical igure of Joseph for keeping himself ‘chaste’ from the advances of his master’s wife.88 In contrast, while leges penalised men for marriage or fornication with another man’s unfree dependant, there were no legal penalties for a lord who had intercourse with his own ancilla or, unusually, married her.89 Masters using their household slaves sexually were largely accepted in Roman times: the rare criticism from classical authors disapproves only of the master’s lack of self-control.90 Old Testament Judaism also accepted slaves being taken as concubines, although prohibitions on homosexual activity halved the acceptable choices for a master’s pleasure. Some penitentials include penalties for such behaviour, but Jonas is the only Carolingian moralist who refers to the practice.91 He demonstrates the general acceptance of such behaviour, warning men approaching marriage to take great care ‘that they may be corrupted neither secretly with prostitutes [meretrices], nor openly with ancillulae, before they tie themselves with the marriage bond’.92 Jonas had to explain away biblical precedents: his chapter in De institutione laicali saying that married men must not keep concubines quotes Ambrose’s discussion on the awkward subject of Abraham fathering a child by an ancilla. Ambrose argues that although Abraham’s example should not be imitated, it was not wrong at the time since, irstly, God had not yet forbidden adultery and, secondly, it was not lust, but a desire for ofspring that drove him.93 Jonas’ condemnation of such practices is set within a strongly gendered framework inherited from Augustine. Such behaviour is unsuitable for men, he says, because they see it as unsuitable for women: ‘Without cause you try to excuse yourselves, when you say: do I go to another’s wife? I go to my ancilla.Would you want your wife to say to you: Do I go to another man, I go to my servus?’94 He also considers such behaviour wrong because it causes tensions within the household: ‘since intemperance of this kind … makes ancillae proud, matrons wrathful, discordant, stubborn, concubines insolent, husbands shameless. At the time the ancilla 87

88 89 91 92 94

Carl I. Hammer, ‘The handmaid’s tale: Morganatic relationships in early-medieval Bavaria’, Continuity and Change 10 (1995), 345–68; Rio, ‘Freedom’, pp. 16–21. Hammer, ‘Handmaid’s tale’, pp. 347–9, 359; Rio, ‘Freedom’, pp. 21–2; LM 3:3, p. 90. Wemple, Women, p. 36. 90 Saller, ‘Hierarchical household’, pp. 125–7. Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei’, p. 14. DIL 2:2, col. 172. 93 See Chapter 8, p. 268. DIL 2:4, col. 175, quoting Augustine of Hippo, Sermo 9:11; see Augustine of Hippo, Sermones, PL 38–9, at PL 38, col. 83.

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The unfree conceives from her master [dominus], she spurns her mistress, as if richer in giving birth; the mistress laments herself despised; but accuses the husband as the author of her injuries.’95 Despite Jonas’ concern elsewhere for mistreatment of the unfree, here it is not the potentially coercive nature of master–slave sexual relationships that worries him, but instead the threat to household hierarchy. Lack of freedom was not invariably a permanent state. As well as debtslavery, which was potentially reversible, manumission of the unfree was also possible.96 The scale of this may have been relatively small, however. Church councils speciically prohibited the freeing of ecclesiastical servi, since it reduced the church’s patrimony.97 Carolingian moral writers do not stress manumission of the unfree as a charitable deed. The lay mirrors do not mention this, although Paulinus and Jonas both call more generally for the redeeming of ‘captives’.98 Nor is the freeing of servi a prominent feature of surviving Carolingian wills. Charlemagne’s will left one-twelfth of his treasure as alms to the palace servi and ancillae, but makes no reference to any manumissions, while the noblewoman Erkanfrida, in a grant made just before her will, freed only seven of more than a hundred mancipia on one estate.99 If the unfree were thus a near-permanent underclass, the sources do not suggest that Frankish lords feared such servile dependants, in contrast to both classical texts and Lombard laws.100 Perhaps as a result, only a few texts suggest a particular moral inferiority of the unfree; HansWerner Goetz discusses examples of denigration of the ‘lower classes’ by the sources, showing that they are largely concerned about possible social reversal.101 Such fears may also lie behind the claim by the Council of Tribur in 895 that it was unsuitable that priestly oice (dignitas) should be held by the ‘worthless persons’ (vilis persona) of the unfree.102 Servi, however, could also be shown behaving well: Dhuoda gives several biblical examples.103 Rhetoric about slave morality rarely appears in political polemic, perhaps because the exalted social position of almost all of the participants ofered few opportunities. Thegan, however, made the most of the possibilities given by Ebbo’s servile origins to blacken his character.104 DIL 2:4, col. 177. Rio, ‘Freedom’, pp. 27–32 discusses the complexities of legal status involved in ‘self-sale’ cases. 97 Bonnassie, From Slavery, p. 28. 98 LE 66, col. 281; DIL 3:10, col. 253. 99 VK 33, p. 39; Nelson, ‘Wary widow’, p. 99. 100 Bonnassie, From Slavery, p. 48; Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, pp. 57–8. 101 Goetz, ‘Unterschichten’, pp. 126–9. 102 MGH Cap. ii:252, p. 230, c. 29. 103 LM 3:3 (Joseph), 3:4 (Abraham’s famulus), pp. 90, 92. 104 Thegan 20, 44, pp. 204–8, 232–8. 95

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Personal power Nithard’s complaint that some of Charles the Bald’s men had abandoned him, breaking their word ‘in the manner of servi’ may relect the particular opportunities for snobbery available to a grandson of Charlemagne.105 Symbolically, too, Carolingian unfree were less segregated than in the Roman period. Unlike then, there is no evidence of distinctive costume for the Carolingian unfree, and mancipia sometimes bore the same aristocratic names as their owners, rather than distinctively slave names.106 The unfree took part in the same religious rites as their masters and might, like them, be recipients of miracles.107 Jonas used this to inculcate a lesson about pride to those who refused to visit the poor when they were sick, pointing out: ‘the Lord did not want to go to the prince’s son, but he did promise he would go to the centurion’s slave’.108 The mirror writers also frequently recalled the words of St Paul that Jesus had deigned to take on the form of a servus.109 The concept of service itself, whether that of a ruler, God or ‘public service’ could be seen positively: bishops were happy to call themselves royal servi or famuli, and kings and saints were famuli and ancillae Dei.110 While there was a wide gap between such metaphorical ‘slavery’ and the reality, even the unfree might have claims to carry out ‘honourable service’.111 Many historians have seen the conditions of the unfree as improving between the early Roman empire and the ninth century;112 there has been more debate about whether or not this relected church inluence.113 In contrast, Pierre Bonnassie argues for an attempted revival of the slave system under Charlemagne and his successors, with the support of some prominent churchmen, such as Alcuin, Regino of Pr üm and Hrabanus Maurus.114 Generally, however, Carolingian moral texts 105 106

107

108 109 110

111 112

113

114

Nithard 2:3, p. 16. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 191; Saller, ‘Hierarchical household’, pp. 116, 124–5. For the social signiicance of Carolingian clothing more generally, see Chapter 7, pp. 235–8. Goetz, ‘Unterschichten’, p. 122; Hedwig Röckelein, ‘Miracles and horizontal mobility in the early Middle Ages: Some methodological relections’, in Hill and Swan, Community, pp. 181–97, at p. 193. DIL 3:14, col. 259, referring to John 4:46–53, Luke 7:1–11. Philippians 2:7, quoted by LE 19, col. 221; LM 3:10, p. 108; DIL 2:9, col. 158. See for example Council of Paris 825, MGH Conc. 2:44, p. 481; Council of Paris 829, MGH Conc. 2:50, pp. 607, 667. Hammer, ‘Handmaid’s tale’, p. 358. See for example Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei’, pp. 6–7; Devroey, ‘Men and women’, p. 7; Rio, ‘Freedom’, p. 11. Bloch, Slavery and Serfdom, pp. 10–15; Hofmann, ‘Kirche und Sklaverei’ stress the church’s positive inluence, while Pierre Dockès, Medieval Slavery and Liberation, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, 1982), pp. 145–9; Whittaker, ‘Circe’s pigs’, p. 105; and Bonnassie, From Slavery, pp. 25–32 see its role as unimportant or even negative. Bonnassie, From Slavery, pp. 53–4.

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The unfree are not particularly interested in the unfree. Capitularies and councils refer frequently to only three topics: the diferent punishments of servi and free for the same crime, the light of the unfree and the problems of marriage. Noticeably missing are attempts at the ideological justiication of slavery as an institution, and also general admonitions for servi to obey their masters. Such material was readily available in biblical and patristic works, and also in Carolingian commentaries.115 Hrabanus Maurus, for example, quotes Augustine in his commentary on Genesis: ‘There is a natural order in people [homines], so that women serve men, and sons [ilii] parents, since also in this matter, it is justice, that the weaker in reason serves the stronger. Clear justice about domination and slavery is therefore that those who surpass in reason should surpass in domination.’116 The infrequent use of such arguments about the naturalness of slavery in texts addressed to lay audiences argues against Bonnassie’s view that Charlemagne was trying to intensify slavery. Yet if Carolingian moralists were not actively supporting slavery, they did little to oppose or amend it.The exception is Jonas, who does show a genuine sense that the essential equality of all humans had practical consequences. He repeatedly stresses the need for Christian masters to behave well, commenting:‘what is greatly to be lamented, a Christian master in these days does not spare a Christian servus, regarding very little, that if he is a servus by condition, yet he is a brother by grace.’117 He also quotes Gregory the Great saying that men should not want to cause fear in other men, who are naturally their equals.118 Jonas was also unusual in linking good treatment of the unfree to that of the free poor, stating: ‘Therefore those ones will not ever be compassionate to the poor who are not in the least compassionate to their famuli.’119 As Bonnassie comments, the church’s concern for the poor and beggars was often at the expense of the unfree.120 In times of famine, there was concern that both servi and the free poor avoided starvation, but legislation on the topic often had economic as 115 116

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118 119 120

See for example Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, pp. 173–90, 206–19 on Paul and Augustine. Hrabanus Maurus, Commentariorum in Genesim libri quatuor, PL 107, cols. 439–670 (4–9, col. 647), quoting Augustine of Hippo, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, Quaest. Gen. 153; see Augustine of Hippo, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, ed. Jean Fraipont, Aurelii Augustini opera. Pars 5, CCSL 33 (Turnhout, 1958), pp. 1–377, at p. 59. DIL 2:22, col. 214, quoting ‘Augustine’ (actually Maximus of Turin, Sermo 36; see Maximus of Turin, Sermonum collectio antiqua, nonnullis sermonibus extravagantibus adiectis, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher, CCSL 23 (Turnhout, 1962), p. 142). DIL 2:22, col. 213, quoting Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, 21–15 (Vol. 143a, p. 1082). DIL 2:23, col. 216, again quoting ‘Augustine’ (Maximus of Turin, Sermo 36 (p. 143)). Bonnassie, From Slavery, p. 28.

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Personal power well as social motives, such as maintaining the resources of beneices granted out by the ruler.121 A poem by Alcuin during a famine recounts how his servi run away from hunger, while giving no indication that he himself is starving.122 Alcuin’s lack of concern about his servi is typical of the lay mirror writers, apart from Jonas. Alcuin and Paulinus repeat that in God there is ‘neither free nor slave’;123 but they rarely consider servitude except as a metaphor, whether as a positive submission to God, or a negative one to the devil.124 Dhuoda, meanwhile, uses the language of service mainly for William’s expected behaviour towards Charles the Bald: he must submit to ‘the yoke of those serving’ (iugum famulantis).125 The most signiicant development for the unfree in the period came from an increasing acceptance of their marriages as valid;126 there is little other evidence that better treatment of the unfree interested most Carolingian reformers.127 Lordsh i p Any discussion of lordship raises immediate problems of deinitions, especially since the vocabulary of lordship was used so widely within the early Middle Ages. The terms dominus and senior could refer to the superior in a number of relationships, such as God and man, king and subject, master and slave, husband and wife, as well as the man controlling a group of armed retainers.128 Terms for those subordinate to a lord were equally varied. Charles Odegaard diferentiated royal ideles (all those commended into a ruler’s service, including a variety of lay and clerical oiceholders) from vassi, one subgroup of these with particular military functions.129 Speciic 121

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123 124 125 127

128 129

Adriaan Verhulst, ‘Karolingische Agrarpolitik: Das Capitulare de Villis und die Hungersnöte von 792/93 und 805/06’, Rural and Urban Aspects of Early Medieval Northwest Europe, Variorum Collected Studies, CS 385 (Aldershot, 1992), Chapter 6, pp. 175–89, at pp. 185–9. Alcuin, Carmen 8, p. 228, 11–13:‘Sic vadunt cuncti fugientes omnibus horis, / Sic male sacra fames exactor dispulit illos, / Sic minuet servos, nec sic sibi sat habet illa.’ (‘Thus they go, leeing at all hours, thus criminal famine like a tax collector evilly scattered them, thus it reduced the servi, nor is it thus satisied.’) LE 38, col. 241; DVV 36, p. 465, quoting Galatians 3:28. See for example LE 6, 7, 35, 64, cols. 202–3, 233, 277; DVV 1, 15, 29, cols. 614, 624, pp. 30–1. LM 3:8, p. 106. 126 Devroey, ‘Men and women’, p. 19. For similar attitudes in Anglo-Saxon moral texts, see David A. E. Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred to the Early Twelfth Century, Studies in Anglo-Saxon History 7 (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 50–79, who can ind no questioning of the institution of slavery by Anglo-Saxon moralists, although they do have concerns about the selling of Christians to pagans. He also discovers one author (Ælfric) who shows imaginative sympathy with slaves. See for example Waltharius, 545; LM 1:7, p. 70. Charles E. Odegaard, Vassi and Fideles in the Carolingian Empire, Harvard Historical Monographs 19 (Cambridge, MA, 1945), pp. 51–68.

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Lordship references to vassi increase under the Carolingians, suggesting that such relationships became more signiicant, although there were probably still relatively few in absolute numbers.130 Military retainers could also be referred to as homines, pueri, gasindi, milites or satellites.131 Usage also developed over time and varied between genres of documents. Vassus, for example, had originally meant an unfree servant.132 Only from the end of the ninth century did charters frequently call laymen dominus or senior.133 Attempts to chart changes in the usage of terminology often rely implicitly on the unjustiied assumption that such words are used consistently, as technical terms.134 An additional diiculty when discussing early medieval lordship is the scholarly construction of (non-Marxist) ‘feudalism’. There is a long historiography analysing iefs and vassals as institutions, or assuming that such institutions existed.135 Many texts have been interpreted within this presumed framework and forced into a pre-existing model of medieval society. The conceptual and evidential basis of such ‘feudo-vassalic institutions’ has now been substantially undermined by Elizabeth Brown and Susan Reynolds.136 In particular, Reynolds has argued for far more precision, seeing ‘at least half a dozen diferent types of relation’ that have been labelled as vasselage.137 Unfortunately, most Carolingian texts do not allow such clear distinctions to be made, and moral texts are often particularly vague about the exact relationship between the ‘lords’ and ‘men’ they discuss. Nevertheless, there have been some attempts to deine and analyse lordship relations in the period without using assumptions about feudalism. Matthew Innes’ work is most useful here. He describes lordship as seen in Einhard’s letters as: ‘essentially formal pacts of interpersonal patronage, which are not implicated in the web of property law and land tenure’.138 Such relationships existed at very varied social levels; elsewhere Innes describes a royal idelis as: ‘an inluential local whose position and importance the king acknowledged, and who was signiicant enough to enter into a personal 130 131 133 134

135 136

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Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 85; Goetz, ‘Staatlichkeit’, p. 188. Odegaard, Vassi, pp. 68–72. 132 Ibid., p. 16. Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Domnus’. See for example Walther Kienast, Die fränkische Vasallität von den Hausmeiern bis zu Ludwig dem Kind und Karl dem Einfältigen (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), pp. 24–51; Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Satellites’. I have therefore chosen either to translate such terms very generally (as ‘man’, ‘follower’ or ‘retainer’) or to leave the speciic terms used in a particular source untranslated. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 3–14 gives a brief overview of the historiography. Elizabeth A. R. Brown,‘The tyranny of a construct: Feudalism and historians of medieval Europe’, American Historical Review 79 (1974), 1063–88; Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 32–3. Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 261. Cf. Innes, State, pp. 87–93.

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Personal power relationship of obligation to the king’.139 In what follows, I focus on such patronage relationships between two (free) laymen. Although such patron–client relations had a long tradition, I am particularly interested in those where the man/client provided military service to the lord, rather than the civilian relationships characteristic of Roman patronage.140 Such men may often have commended themselves for service to a dominus or senior, but I have not assumed that any speciic act was either unique to such relationships, or constitutive of them.141 Nor did such relationships necessarily involve gifts of land by the lord, either outright or in beneice: sources suggest that some military followings were supported directly in their lord’s household.142 Further problems are raised by the fact that Carolingian sources discuss mainly royal ‘men’, whether described as vassi, ideles or by other terms.143 We cannot necessarily assume that aristocratic lordship took the same form;144 even scholars who argue for royal lordship as developing from other forms of lordship admit that concepts of kingship also drew on other models.145Again, however, the imprecision of the moral texts means that they cannot be separated neatly into discussions of royal and noble lordship. The ethos of lordship While discussions of the legal and structural aspects of Carolingian lordship have until recently often been based on assumptions about feudalism, research on the ethos of lordship, in contrast, has largely drawn on a diferent model. Many studies have focused on the early Germanic Gefolgschaft (warband) and debated whether this is the origin of early medieval lordship.146 Such research has drawn mostly on vernacular sources, often from widely varied regions and periods. In contrast, my

139 140

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142 145

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Innes, State, p. 63. On such patronage see for example Richard P. Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge, 1982). Such rituals have traditionally been seen as central: see for example François-Louis Ganshof, Feudalism, trans. Philip Grierson, 3rd English edn (London, 1964), pp. 26–30; Kienast, Fränkische Vasallität, p. 1. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 28–9, 82–3 justiiably urges caution on the conclusions that can be drawn from rituals. Reuter, ‘Plunder’, pp. 81–4. 143 Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 88. 144 Innes, State, p. 89. See for example Schlesinger, ‘Herrschaft’, pp. 251–3 on the impact of theocratic ideas of royal oice. See for example ibid., pp. 235–41; Hans Kuhn, ‘Die Grenzen der germanischen Gefolgschaft’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung 73 (1956), 1–83; Karl Kroeschell, ‘Die Treue in der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte’, Studi medievali 3rd series 10 (1969), 465–89.

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Lordship discussion will focus on the speciically Carolingian evidence, without assuming similarities with lordship in other cultures. There are still problems, however. Some of the key texts are probably deliberately worded to make a political point and cannot be taken as representative of widely shared moral norms. In particular, the dubious account in the Royal Frankish Annals of Tassilo as Pippin III’s vassus is a deeply insecure basis for accounts of the development of ‘feudalism’.147 Other texts are ambiguously worded. Susan Reynolds points out that the language of the general oath of idelity in 802 made by all Charlemagne’s adult male subjects – ‘I am faithful … just as by right a man ought to be faithful to his lord’ (idelis sum … sicut per drictum debet esset homo domino suo) – could imply either that the relationship is diferent from the normal one between a homo and his dominus, or that it is an example of it.148 Many of the relationships discussed involved other forms of subordination: it is hard to see neat distinctions between the king as king and the king as ‘feudal lord’.149 Several cases are known where lesser nobles were kinsmen of their lord.150 Some basic norms do emerge, however. Lordship, in its speciic sense of the lord–man relationship, was normally seen in masculine terms, although abbesses and some royal women also had their own homines.151 Charles the Bald is recorded as having a Jewish idelis, but Prudentius of Troyes was appalled that Lothar I, by granting a beneice to the Dane Harald, had made ‘persecutors of the Christian faith … lords over Christians’.152 In 805 Charlemagne banned men from swearing oaths to more than one senior, which has been taken as implying that they could only have one lord.153 However, it is not certain that every free man had to have a lord: capitularies that demand this often do so in the context of divisions of the kingdom or inter-kingdom agreements, and so may be atypical.154 While the sources are vague on the details of the lord–man relationship, they are more consistent in their moral rhetoric. Indeed the 147

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For such accounts see for example Ganshof, Feudalism, p. 29; Kienast, Fränkische Vasallität, pp. 80–2. On the problems with this text see Becher, Eid, pp. 21–77. Susan Reynolds, ‘Afterthoughts on Fiefs and Vassals’, Haskins Society Journal 9 (1997), 1–15, at pp. 5–7, citing Capitularia missorum specialia, MGH Cap. i:34, p. 101. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 36. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 410; Innes, State, p. 92. Abbesses: Capitulare missorum, MGH Cap. i:25, p. 67, c. 4; Charlemagne’s daughters: Capitula cum primis conferenda 808, MGH Cap. i:51, p. 139, c. 13. Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, roi de France, ed. Georges Tessier, 3 vols. (Paris, 1948–55) 417, Vol. ii, pp. 432; AB 841, p. 26. Capitulare missorum in Theodonis villa datum secundum 805, MGH Cap. i:44, p. 124, c. 9. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 87.

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Personal power widespread use of lordship as a metaphor to describe other relationships suggests that the concept had considerable ideological force. The key aspect stressed both by Carolingian texts and modern scholars is the idelity of the subordinate to his lord.155 Lordship is thus frequently used as an analogy in texts that want to stress a need for such idelity. Matthias Becher, for example, shows that such a parallel was used in the general oath demanded of subjects by Charlemagne in 789, even though there is no deinite evidence that vassi had previously sworn oaths.156 Nearly a century later, the west Frankish bishops said in their profession of faith to their new king Louis the Stammerer: ‘I will be faithful and a helper to my lord [senior] and King Louis with aid and counsel, according to my ministry [ministerium] and knowledge and ability, just as a bishop rightly owes to his lord [sicut episcopus recte seniori suo debitor est].’157 ‘Fidelity’, however, was a lexible concept.The Capitulare missorum generale in 802 included eight clauses explaining an expanded sense of what the idelity promised by each man in the realm to Charlemagne involved; it was no longer enough simply to avoid treachery oneself and to inform on the inidelity of others.158 Some scholarship has contrasted a reciprocal Germanic Treue (loyalty) between lord and follower with Christianised or Roman-derived ideas of simple obedience by a subordinate.159 However, the earliest sources do not support a speciically ‘German’ concept of idelity, and by the Carolingian period, it is clear that Christian thinking had strongly pervaded ideas of idelity, as seen in phrases such as ‘ideles of God and the king’.160 A look at the speciic expectations of both lords and men is more helpful, although such obligations probably depended partly on the status of both parties. Charles Odegaard argued from a study of oaths imposed by rulers that royal ideles had to promise help, counsel and aid according to their ordo and person to their lord, unlike the ordinary subject, who promised only loyalty.161 The capitularies consider lordship mainly in terms of control of subordinates.162 Several capitularies from late in 155

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161 162

On idelitas and inidelitas as key concepts in the capitularies, in contrast to the leges, see Kroeschell, ‘Treue’, pp. 481–2. Becher, Eid, pp. 145–63. Capitula electionis Hludowici Balbi Compendii facta 877, MGH Cap. ii:283e, p. 365. MGH Cap. i:33, pp. 92–3, cc. 2–9. On the signiicance of these clauses, see Becher, Eid, pp. 201–12. See for example Schlesinger, ‘Herrschaft’, pp. 235, 253; D. H. Green, The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies on Four Old High German Words. Balder, Frô, Truhtin, Hêrro (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 64–79. František Graus, ‘Über die sogenannte germanische Treue’, Historica 1 (1959), 71–121; Kroeschell, ‘Treue’. Odegaard, ‘Carolingian oaths of idelity’. Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. A. Manyon, 2nd edn, 2 vols. (London, 1962),Vol. i, pp. 157–8.

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Lordship Charlemagne’s reign, for example, demand that no-one may receive another’s homo or vassus without permission;163 the same demand crops up in two capitularies from 806 and 847 arranging the relations between diferent Frankish kings.164 Lordship was seen by rulers primarily as a tool for enforcing public order. Once the changing nature of Carolingian wars made assembling armies more diicult, for example, capitularies demanded that lords ensured their men came to the host, and controlled their behaviour on their way there.165 Louis II ordered that the lord of a man killed as a bandit must not seek revenge, on pain of being held as an accomplice.166 Charlemagne’s late capitularies show a particular concern that lordship should support the state rather than undermine it: a view summed up in his decree in 805 that men could swear oaths of idelity only to the ruler and his own lord ‘for our beneit and his lord’s [senior]’.167 In 811 he complained about men wanting to stay with their lords at home, rather than joining the host, especially those who had commended themselves to seniores who they knew were not going with the host.168 Charlemagne’s view of lordship was not purely as a military relationship, however, and his capitularies suggest how the moral language of lordship could blur diferent types of relationship together. An order of his to missi in 803 × 813 insisted that those buying livestock must know ‘who the seller is or from what county, or where he lives or who his lord is’, while each missus was to report to Charlemagne how many ‘outsiders’(adventiti) there were in his missatico (region of operation), from what county, their name and their lord.169 In 808, meanwhile, he ordered that lords (seniores) should set a good example of sobriety to their subordinates (iuniores).170 Although other rulers said less about lordship, the same patterns are visible. An emphasis on the ‘beneit’ to the ruler meant that exemptions from the norms of lordship could be granted as a royal privilege in speciic cases. The right to leave a lord freely, for example, was given to 163

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166 167 168 169 170

Capitulare missorum Aquisgranense primum 809, MGH Cap. i:62, p. 150, c. 10; Capitula tractanda cum comitibus episcopis et abbatibus 811, MGH Cap. i:71, p. 161, c. 4. Divisio regnorum 806, MGH Cap. i:45, pp. 128, cc. 7–8; Hlotharii, Hludowici et Karoli conventus apud Marsnam primus 847, MGH Cap. ii:204, p. 71, Adnuntiatio Karoli, c. 3. See for example Capitulare missorum de exercitu promovendo 808, MGH Cap. i:50, p. 137, c. 1; Capitulare Bononiense 811, MGH Cap. i:74, p. 167, c. 9; Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, MGH Cap. i:150, p. 305, c. 17. On the new demands for military service see Halsall, Warfare and Society, pp. 89–95. See below, pp. 210–11. Capitulare missorum in Theodonis villa datum secundum, generale 805, MGH Cap. i:44, p. 124, c. 9. Capitula de rebus exercitalibus in placito tractanda 811, MGH Cap. i:73, p. 165, c. 8. Capitula per missos cognita facienda, MGH Cap. i:67, p. 157, cc. 3, 4. Capitulare missorum Aquisgranense primum 808, MGH Cap. i:64, p. 153, c. 7

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Personal power Spanish settlers in Aquitaine and also to vassi of Charles the Bald in the particular diiculties of 856.171 In contrast to the keen interest shown by Carolingian rulers in how lordship might afect their control of the kingdom, the capitularies say much less about the ‘private’ dynamics of the lord–man relationship. A couple of Pippin’s capitularies deal with the consequences for marriages resulting from men relocating to be with a lord.172 Concessions allowing men to leave their lords freely show that men were normally expected to remain with their lords long-term, unless given his permission to leave. Occasionally, capitularies hint at more detailed moral norms for the relationship.Two late capitularies of Charlemagne allowed a man to leave his lord in certain circumstances. A capitulary from Aachen in 802 × 803 allowed this if the lord wanted to kill him, beat him with a staf, ‘pollute’ his wife or daughter, or take his inheritance; another capitula, probably from before 805, gave as acceptable reasons his lord unjustly wanting to reduce him to slavery, committing adultery with his wife or trying to kill him, or the lord’s being able to defend him and not doing so.173 Explicit penalties for men killing their own lords were rare. The irst Saxon capitulary threatened Saxons who killed their lord or lady (domina) or committed raptus on their lord’s daughter with death.174 That this severe penalty was intended mainly to inculcate the Saxons into acceptable Frankish norms is suggested by an early-ninth-century record of a case, probably heard in Italy. A man who had a servus kill his two lords, who were both still children, and then murdered the servus himself, was punished only with a heavy ine.175 Otherwise the capitularies are remarkably silent on how men and lords ought to behave towards one another; even general statements that lords should behave justly to their men are rare. Charles the Bald at Meersen in 847 was unusual in linking his own promise not to act against his ideles unjustly with a demand that they in turn should not be unjust towards their own men;176 here, traditional concerns to secure public order through lordship seem to meet a new awareness that the idelity of subordinates could not be taken for granted.177 171

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174 175 176

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Praeceptum pro Hispanis 844, MGH Cap. ii:256, p. 259, c. 5; Capitula ad Francos et Aquitanos missa de Carisiaco, MGH Cap. ii:262, p. 282, c. 13. See Chapter 8, p. 270. Capitulare Aquisgranense, MGH Cap. i:77, p. 172, c. 16; Capitula francica, MGH Cap. i:104, p. 215, c. 8. On the dating of these texts, see Kienast, Fränkische Vasallität, p. 123. Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, Cap. i:26, p. 69, cc. 12, 13. Ibid., Cap. i:129, p. 257. See for example Hlotharii, Hludowici et Karoli conventus apud Marsnam primus 847, MGH Cap. ii:204, p. 71, Adnuntiatio Karoli, c. 4. On the parallels to Charlemagne’s legislation in 806 see Nelson, Charles the Bald, pp. 149–50.

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Lordship The supposedly afective and personal aspects of lordship are rarely mentioned in the capitularies;178 nor are they prominent in the two authors who write most about the moral aspects of lordship: Hincmar and Dhuoda. Hincmar’s work draws heavily on the sixth abuse in PseudoCyprian, the ‘lord without virtue’ (dominus sine virtute).179 While Sedulius Scottus used Pseudo-Cyprian’s advice in his advice to Charles the Bald, Hincmar saw it as applying ‘not only to the king, but to everyone who has the power of domination’.180 Pseudo-Cyprian stresses that the lord must have ‘virtue’, which he can obtain only by the help of the ‘Lord of lords’. Unless the lord clings to God, he and all those he ‘supports’ will fall.181 The lord who is close to God, in contrast, will have his control increased: ‘For if he should begin to have the Lord of lords as his helper in acts, no man will be able to hold his domination in contempt.’182 Pseudo-Cyprian (and Hincmar) also explains how a lord should show this virtus: This strength of virtue does not require external might, although this also is necessary to secular lords, but rather inner spiritual power, which ought to be practised through good morals. For often the virtue of commanding is lost by weakness of spirit, just as is conirmed to have happened to Eli the priest. Since he did not coerce his erring sons through the severity of a judge, the Lord did not spare him their revenge, as if he had consented. Three things are necessary for those who rule, namely fear, obedience and love; for unless the lord is equally loved and feared, his commands will avail little.Through favours and friendliness, let him seek to be loved, and through just punishments, not for injury to himself, but violations of the law of God, let him strive to be feared.183

A glimpse of what such ‘fear, obedience and love’ might mean is seen in Dhuoda’s discussions of the duties owed to a (royal) lord. Her starting point is that since both Bernard and God chose Charles the Bald as William’s lord, William must therefore ‘keep pure and certain faith to 178 180

181 182 183

Stone, ‘Dear lord’, pp. 159–60. 179 Pseudo-Cyprian, pp. 43–5. LRC 2, p. 26; Ad Carolum III 5, col. 992. Hincmar cites the same passage extensively in De ordine 10, pp. 50–2 and Ad episcopos 8, cols. 1012–13. Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 44 (quoted in De ordine and Ad episcopos). Ibid., p. 45 (quoted in Ad episcopos and Ad Carolum III). Ibid., pp. 43–4 (quoted in Ad episcopos, and partially in De ordine and Ad Carolum III):Sed hic virtutis rigor non tam exteriori fortitudine, quae et ipsa saecularibus dominis necessaria est, indiget quam animi interiori fortitudine per bonos mores exerceri debet. Saepe enim dominandi virtus per animi negligentiam perditur, sicut in Heli sacerdote factum fuisse comprobatur. Qui dum per severitatem iudicis peccantes ilios non coercuit, eorum vindicta Dominus velut consentienti non pepercit. Tria ergo necessaria hos qui dominantur habere oportet, terrorem scilicet, et ordinationem, et amorem; nisi enim ametur dominus pariter et metuatur, ordinatio illius constare minime potest; per beneicia ergo et afabilitatem procuret ut diligatur, et per iustas vindictas, non propriae iniuriae, sed legis Dei, studeat ut metuatur.

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Personal power him [Charles] in all useful matters’.184 William must serve the powerful faithfully ‘without annoyance, half-heartedness and laziness’.185 He must be ‘truthful, vigilant, useful and distinguished’. Above all, he must avoid disloyalty (inidelitas), which has never been seen in his ancestors and never will be.186 As has often been pointed out, Dhuoda’s fervent insistence on the persistent idelity of William’s line is probably linked to Bernard’s unsavoury reputation. Dhuoda also adds that William should give good advice, cherish his lord’s kinsmen and pray for his lord.187 She recommends reading the Bible for models of behaviour toward’s one senior, and singles out the famulus of Abraham and David’s commanders, showing an idea of lordship that is both domestic and military.188 Yet when she calls on William to love Charles and his relatives, her sentiments seem purely conventional.189 What she expects to motivate William, apart from his responsibility towards God and his family, is his hope of reward. Fidelity to one’s lord, she says, ‘will, as we believe, be very useful to you and your household [famulantes]’.190 Such eager expectations of reward were not unique to Dhuoda. In 856 Charles the Bald promised to consider favourably the case of anyone ‘who said that he had joined such a sworn conspiracy [against Charles] because of poverty and necessity, so that he might obtain something that he could not obtain by service, since he had spent many days in his [Charles’] service, and had paid out all that he had’.191 Perhaps because of William’s age, Dhuoda says little to him about being a lord himself. The three other lay mirrors say very little about lordship, apart from Alcuin’s comment that one form of pride is when men are reluctant to obey their seniores.192 Nor do Frankish narrative sources and poetry provide the rich material on the ethos of lordship found in Anglo-Saxon texts.193 Historical texts include a few examples of themes familiar from other early medieval cultures: men willing to die for their lords or revenging them, references to the ties of afection between men and lords.194 Yet such incidents are never developed by the sources into exemplary, inspirational scenes, in the way that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle treats the Cynewulf and Cyneheard episode.195 184 186 188 191 192 193 194 195

LM 3:4, p. 92. 185 Ibid., p. 94: ‘sine molestia et tepiditate atque pigritia’. Ibid. 187 Ibid. 3:5, 3:8, 8:6, pp. 96, 104, 198. Ibid. 3:4, p. 92. 189 Stone, ‘Dear lord’, p. 158. 190 LM 3:4, p. 94. Capitula ad Francos et Aquitanos missa de Carisiaco 856, MGH Cap. II:262, p. 280, c. 6. See Chapter 4, p. 124. I give a more detailed comparison with Anglo-Saxon material in Stone, ‘Dear lord’. On dying for one’s lord see Chapter 3, pp. 96, 98–9. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, trans. Michael Swanton, rev. edn (London, 2000), 755a, e, pp. 46–9. On this episode see for example Hill, Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic, pp. 74–88; Stephen D.White, ‘Kinship

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Lordship Lordship is also rarely the emotional centre of Carolingian secular poems. Even Waltharius, set almost entirely in a world of warriors, emphasises the folly of two lords (Attila and Gunther) whose followers (Walter and Hagan) show at most reluctant support. As František Graus points out, idelity to a lord is not automatically seen by the author of the poem as overriding other relationships.196 Most other Carolingian war poetry has only leeting references to the emotional bonds of lords and followers. Similarly, the epitaphs of noble laymen do not stress the particular grief of their own men; all are invited to weep for them.197 Many of the texts that discuss the events of 830–43 make much of themes of idelity and disloyalty, but the lord–man relationship is rarely their focus. Thegan, for example, reserves his harshest words about ‘betrayal’ for Ebbo and Lothar.198 This period, however, did produce two texts glorifying lay noblemen’s loyalty to a royal lord. One is Nithard’s Histories, which repeatedly contrasts nobles who betray their king with those whose loyalty is enduring.199 The other is Walahfrid Strabo’s panegyric on Ruadbern, who helped secure the release of Louis the Pious and Judith. Walahfrid praises his faithfulness, bravery and cunning, and sees him as an example to all: Just as the man aware of his treachery wastes away, his breast racked by its poison, so, or rather much more, may those who have kept in their hearts an allegiance to their lords that has proved invincible in all disasters discover every balmy joy.200

Overall, the morality of lordship seems at once pervasive and curiously intangible. The bond of lord and man was a key ethical model, repeatedly used as an analogy for other relationships. When Hincmar wanted to warn Louis the Stammerer to mend his relationship with God, for example, he used as an analogy how a man who had ofended his lord

196 197

198 200

and lordship in early medieval England:The story of Sigeberht, Cynewulf and Cyneheard’, Viator 20 (1989), 1–18. Graus, ‘Germanische Treue’, pp. 80–2. See for example MGH Poet. i, pp. 109–10 (Eggihard); Paulinus, Carmen 2, MGH Poet. i, pp. 131–3 (Eric of Friuli). Cf. the planctus on Charlemagne’s death, in PCR, pp. 206–11. Thegan 44, 53, pp. 232–8, 246. 199 See for example Nithard 2:2–4, pp. 15–16. Walahfrid Strabo, Carmen 38, 89–93, in PCR, p. 220 (Godman’s translation): Quantum sibi conscius ille Peridiae confusa globis per pectora tabet, Tantum, vel potius multo magis, omnia secum Laetitiae fomenta habeant, qui ida reservant Corda suis dominis casusque invicta per omnes.

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Personal power would hasten to return to his grace.201 Yet actual relationships between lay followers and lords were rarely celebrated. Lordship was instead only one of many social ties; even Dhuoda, who most stresses the moral duties of a man to his lord, explicitly prioritises William’s ties to his father.202 This ambivalence is most probably due to the Carolingian political context. Recent studies of lordship in other early medieval cultures suggest that some key texts are not simple descriptions of moral norms, but instead works with speciic political and ideological agendas. František Graus, for example, argued that the Heliand was intended to preach idelity in all its senses to an audience of Saxons, seen by many Carolingian sources as faithless. Stephen White has discussed the political strategies behind some of the eleventh-century texts traditionally used by scholars to construct the idea of ‘feudal lordship’.203 Similarly, John Hill has argued that ideas of ‘transcendental lordship’ in texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and The Battle of Maldon were not simple descriptions of existing values, but intended as ideological support for West Saxon kings.204 Carolingian kings and their supporters appear to have been more wary than Anglo-Saxon rulers about the moral promotion of secular lordship, perhaps fearing that it would provide alternative focuses of loyalty.205 There is certainly no Frankish equivalent to the view of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that loyalty even to a lord rebelling against the king could be admirable.206 Even focusing solely on royal lordship was problematic: after all, the Carolingians themselves had come to power by abandoning their Merovingian lords.The recurrent political need for rulers to reconcile rebellious opponents, or win over new supporters, also made it unhelpful to promote an ideology in which disloyalty was an unforgiveable sin. Instead, noble idelity to royal lords was always renewable. The same was probably true at a lower level, although such cases are rarely visible. The Fulda Annals for 848 report that Louis the German ‘reconciled the men of bishop Hrabanus [Maurus], who had been publically proved to have conspired against their lord, with him’.207 The few texts that do celebrate unshakeable loyalty by a lay idelis to a royal lord, such as Nithard’s history and Walahfrid’s poem on Ruadbern, were written at times of 201 203

204 205 206

Novi regis 9, col. 988. 202 LM 3:2, p. 88. Graus, ‘Germanische Treue’, pp. 88; Stephen D. White, ‘Politics of idelity: Hugh of Lusignan and William of Aquitaine’, in Claudie Duhamel-Amado and Guy Lobrichon (eds.), Georges Duby: L’Ecriture de l’histoire (Brussels, 1996), pp. 223–30. Hill, Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic, pp. 129–45. Stone, ‘Dear lord’, pp. 163–6 discusses the contrasting political backgrounds in more detail. On Cyneheard, see above, p. 196. 207 AF 848, p. 37.

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Kinship particular crisis, when the need to stem a tide of noble defection outweighed the possible danger of portraying the king as a lord like others. In general, however, both Carolingian rulers and moralists exploited the language of secular lordship, while doing little actively to promote the moral norms surrounding it.208 Kinship The social and political importance of kinship and friendship in the early Middle Ages has long been recognised, and there has been much scholarly research on Frankish families and kin groups.209 Originally, the emphasis was on the structures visible in the leges, but from the 1930s onwards, this was supplemented by insights from prosopographical studies on noble families, with the work of Gerd Tellenbach and the ‘Freiburg School’ particularly inluential.210 More recently, approaches focusing on early medieval women have broadened our understanding of family dynamics, while anthropological approaches to kinship have also been inluential.211 There has also been a new interest in ‘friendship’, with an increased awareness that the early medieval concept of amicitia does not map neatly onto modern ideas of the friend as a freely chosen and like-minded companion. Early medieval ‘friendships’ were not subjective feelings, but had a contractual character, which pledged the parties to mutual help and support.They were reinforced by rituals, such as oaths and meals.212 Close ties could nevertheless be created: amici appeared among family groups in memorial books.213 Scholarly research has also now signiicantly modiied our views on the structure of noble families in the period. Until recently, Karl Schmid’s view dominated, seeing the Early Middle Ages as characterised by the Sippe, a large group of kin related bilaterally (through both the father and mother), as opposed to a later period when narrower families based 208

209

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211

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On the church’s appropriation of the vernacular language of secular lordship, see Green, Carolingian Lord, pp. 508–17. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Family, gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages’, in Michael Bentley (ed.), Companion to Historiography (London, 1997), pp. 153–76 gives an overview of research in the ield. See for example Tellenbach, Königtum und Stämme; Gerd Tellenbach (ed.), Studien und Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte des großfränkischen und frühdeutschen Adels, Forschungen zur oberrheinischen Landesgeschichte, 4 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1957). See for example Pauline Staford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages (Athens, GA, 1983); Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983); Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir. Althof , Verwandte, pp. 86–7. 213 Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 386–7.

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Personal power around a patrilineal lineage (father to son) developed.214 The same idea of a mutation familiale also formed an important component of Georges Duby’s inluential ideas on social change in the eleventh century.215 More recent research, however, has challenged this model, pointing out, for example, that bilateral kinship systems can still have patrilateral biases within them.216 Instead, many scholars now suggest that the Sippe (or some other form of wider kinship group) co-existed with a considerably narrower ‘nuclear family’ during the Carolingian period.217 Matthew Innes, for example, contrasts ‘oicial’ kin, whose ties might be socially acknowledged, with a narrower range of ‘practical’ kin, who shared in speciic political strategies.218 It is doubtful that the Sippe as a whole had much coherent political power: kin groups and even brothers did not necessarily hold together in times of political conlict.219 More recent scholarship that still uses the concept of the Sippe therefore stresses the luidity and mutability of such wider kin groups.220 These complex structures of kinship were also not static.Ties might be reinforced by the formation of bonds of amicitia; amici were often sought from maternal kin, for example.221 The use of godparenthood to create social ties was intensiied in the Carolingian period: Joseph Lynch talks of a ‘proliferation of spiritual kinship’.222 In 826, for example, Louis the Pious’ sponsorship of the Danish prince Herold’s baptism was reinforced by his wife and son’s sponsorship of Herold’s own wife and son, and the magnates’ sponsoring members of Herold’s entourage.223 Changing deinitions of consanguinity afected marriage patterns,224 while Carolingian rulers encouraged the movement of aristocratic families within the empire, and marriages between the component kingdoms.225 Such natural or created ties could have both ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ components, linking people not only with social equals, but also 214

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218 219 220 222 223 225

Schmid, ‘Zur problematik’; Karl Schmid, ‘The structure of the nobility in the earlier Middle Ages’, in Reuter, Medieval Nobility, pp. 37–59. See for example Georges Duby, ‘Lineage, nobility and knighthood:The Mâconnais in the twelfth century – a revision’, in The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), pp. 59–80. Staford, ‘Mutation familiale’, pp. 105–8. See for example Bouchard, ‘Family structure’; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 331–427. As Reuter, ‘Introduction’, in Medieval Nobility, p. 7 points out, in the twelfth century a wider sense of family than the lineage is also sometimes visible. Innes, State, p. 53. See for example Airlie, ‘Political behaviour’, pp. 21–4, 113–14; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 393. See for example Althof, Verwandte, pp. 34–6. 221 Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 83. Joseph H. Lynch, Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1986), pp. 205–18. In honorem, 2239–47. 224 See below, Chapter 8, pp. 265–7. Althof , Verwandte, pp. 47–8. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 126–8 sees Carolingian rulers as attempting to weaken family solidarity by extending incest prohibitions and restricting feuds, but the evidence is not compelling (see below, pp. 210–11; and Chapter 8, pp. 262–3).

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Kinship the more powerful or impoverished.226 Yet ‘vertical’ kinship was not simply a one-way relationship. Powerful igures could provide patronage at court, but might themselves need support at times of crises.The ‘imperial aristocracy’ could move between regions or even kingdoms, precisely because they had kin networks already there to support them and provide their followings.227 Despite our increased understanding of Carolingian family networks, the moral norms attached to such relationships have not yet been analysed fully. Does the fact that Salic law required a special act to leave the parentela (kin group),228 mean that we can simply presume that solidarity within such groups was a moral norm? The studies that have analysed kin relationships in most detail have tended to focus on royal families, which are far better documented.229 In this section I shall pull together the relatively scanty material on the moral norms that noblemen were told to adhere to, both in their treatment of close kin (wives, children and siblings) and relatives in general. As usual, moralists drew on a rather undigested mix of Christian texts (both anti- and pro-family) and barbarian traditions. Husbands, fathers and brothers Late antique Christianity developed a complex theology on both the signiicance of marriage and the correct sexual relationship within it.230 Especially important was the idea that a married man had headship over his wife, but that this domination was to be expressed through love. Augustine encapsulated this view of marriage in describing it as ‘a certain friendly and genuine union, with one ruling and the other obeying’.231 While some scholarship has seen Carolingian marriage practices as having negative consequences for women,232 it is generally accepted that Carolingian authors had a more positive view of marriage and wives 226 227 228 229

230 231

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Innes, State, pp. 85–7. See for example ibid., pp. 207–10 on Robert the Strong’s movements. PLS 60, p. 225. See for example Staford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers; Rudolf Schiefer, ‘Väter und Söhne im Karolingerhause’, in Rudolf Schiefer (ed.), Beiträge zur Geschichte des Regnum Francorum: Referate beim Wissenschaftlichen Colloquium zum 75. Geburtstag von Eugen Ewig, Beiheft der Francia 22 (Sigmaringen, 1990), pp. 149–64. Studies of Dhuoda’s family have formed one exception: see for example Wollasch, ‘Eine adlige Familie’; Claussen, ‘Fathers’. See below, Chapters 7 and 8, pp. 247–8, 285. Augustine of Hippo, De bono coniugali, ed. Joseph Zycha, Sancti Aurelii Augustini opera, Sectio 5, pars 3, CSEL 41 (Vienna, 1900) i.1, p. 188: ‘alterius regentis, alterius obsequentis amicalis quaedam et germana coniunctio’. Wemple, Women, pp. 95–6.

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Personal power than the Church Fathers.233 There was no challenge to a hierarchical view of marriage, but when Carolingian moralists refer to the headship of the husband, they often also refer to the counter-requirement of St Paul that husbands love their wives.234 Jonas, following St Augustine, even has adulterous husbands implicitly losing their headship; he has Jesus telling a wife: ‘For in the matter that he has done wrong, do not think him your head, but me.’235 In contrast to St Augustine, Carolingian moralists rarely explicitly condone domestic violence against wives, although they may have tacitly accepted it.236 Hrabanus Maurus was asked about the penance when someone beat his pregnant wife so hard that he killed her unborn twins. He saw this as ‘excessive correction’ and thought the penance for homicide appropriate, but did not suggest any penance speciically for the injury to the wife.237 Wife-beating, however, was not extolled as a necessary part of conjugal discipline, in the way that Carolingian authors encouraged the physical disciplining of children.238 Although moralists said little generally about domestic violence, they had more to say on uxoricide. Authors repeatedly contrast secular laws that allowed the killing of wives guilty of sexual ofences with the church’s moral condemnation of such acts. Lombard law explicitly allowed a husband to kill an adulterous wife and her lover, and an Italian capitulary from 822 endorses this.239 Frankish leges, in contrast, did not explicitly state that this was allowed, but the greatest protection that even Louis the Pious was prepared to concede was that public penance should be imposed on husbands who remarried after killing a wife who was innocent (sine culpa).240 The threat to women was real: Regino reports Count Richwin killing his wife in 883 for her ‘debauchery’ (stuprum).241 The Vita Ganguli shows most clearly the strong efect of such social conventions even on a saintly man.242 When the nobleman Gangulf learns 233

234 235 236

237 238 239

240 241 242

See for example ibid., p. 193; Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, pp. 249–53. Heene, Legacy, pp. 96–113 has a detailed discussion of ideas on marital relationships in Carolingian texts, drawing on hagiographical material not discussed here. See for example DIL 2:5, cols. 177–9; De coercendo 11, col. 1025; and below, p. 205. DIL 2:4, col. 176, quoting Augustine, Sermo 9:11, p. 129. Brent D. Shaw, ‘The family in late antiquity: The experience of Augustine’, Past and Present 115 (1987), 3–51, at pp. 31–2; Heene, Legacy, p. 105. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 41, p. 479. See below, pp. 207–8. Edictus Rothari, ed. Friedrich Bluhme and Alfred Boretius, Leges Langobardorum, MGH Leges nat. Germ. iv (Hanover, 1868), p. 3–90, at pp. 51–2, cc. 211–12; Capitulare Olonnense 822 × 823, MGH Cap. i:157, p. 317, c. 3. Capitulare pro lege habendum Wormatiense 829, MGH Cap. ii:193, pp. 18–19, c. 3. Regino 883, p. 121. I discuss the gender implications of Gangulf ’s story in more detail in Stone, ‘Masculinity without conlict’.

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Kinship than his wife has committed adultery, his irst thoughts are violent: ‘for it was always in his heart, that he should not allow her to live longer, lest, having repeatedly fallen in the ilth of this mud pool, she might seriously dishonour the glory of his nobility by the disgrace of infamy’.243 Gangulf decides instead to leave his wife to God’s judgement; his wife and her clerical lover then kill him, fearing such exceptional forbearance may not last.244 The story of Gangulf ’s self-restraint, which precipitates his ‘martyrdom’, should be seen as one aspect of a continuing campaign by a number of churchmen to counter such secular norms. These attempts are irst visible at the end of the eighth century, when Paulinus of Aquileia imposed a severe lifelong penance on a certain Aistulf, who had killed his innocent wife, and afterwards alleged she was an adulteress. Paulinus stressed that even if the allegations had been true, Aistulf could have sent his wife away, but not killed her.245 Paulinus’ judgement was cited by Hrabanus Maurus and Hincmar and, more than 200 years later, incorporated into Burchard’s Decretum.246 Hincmar also protested vocally against extra-judicial killings by husbands: Let those who are of such kind defend themselves as much as they want, whether by secular laws [mundanae leges], if there are any, or human customs, but if they are Christians, let them know that on the day of judgement they will be judged neither by Roman, Salic or Burgundian law, but by divine and apostolic laws.247

A similar contrast between lay and clerical norms is seen in arrangements to deal with wives leeing between kingdoms. The second Treaty of Meersen in 851, for example, speciied that adulterous wives must be returned to their husbands if they had crossed the frontiers.248 In 860, however, Ingiltrude, who had run away with her lover from her husband, Count Boso of Italy, was able to exploit churchmen’s concerns about her safety. She successfully persuaded Archbishop Gunther of Cologne not to return her, lest Boso kill her.249 243

244 246

247 248

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Vita Ganguli, c. 6, p. 161: ‘Sepius enim cordi inherebat, ne eam diutius vivere sineret, ne, crebro in huius volutabri caeno devoluta, decus nobilitatis eius graviter dehonestaret infamiae turpitudine’. Ibid., c. 9, p. 163. 245 Paulinus, Epistola 16, pp. 520–1. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 53, p. 507; Flodoard of Rheims, Historia Remensis ecclesiae 3:21, p. 278 (letter of Hincmar to Wulfad of Bourges); Burchard of Worms, Decretorum libri viginti, PL 140, cols. 541–1058, Book vi, c. 40, cols. 774–5. De divortio, Responsio 5, p. 145, repeated in De coercendo 12, col. 1026. See for example Hlotharii, Hludowicii et Karoli conventus apud Marsnam secundus 851, MGH Cap. ii:205, p. 73, c. 5. On Ingiltrude, see Stone, ‘Bound’.

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Personal power Ingiltrude’s case, however, shows the limitations of episcopal protection for wives. Hincmar insisted that Ingiltrude should be returned, once suitable assurances had been received from Boso that he would not kill her. Nor was he impressed by her threat to go over to the Vikings rather than return.250 The Council of Tribur in 895 took a similar position: bishops must protect any ‘debauched’ (constuprata) wife who lees to sanctuary, to ensure she is not killed. They should aim to negotiate with her husband to spare her life; if this failed, however, she should not be returned, but taken to a place of safety.251 Why did Carolingian moralists have so much to say about this particular form of domestic violence? Some scholars have thought that the new emphasis on indissoluble marriage meant that more men ended their marriages by murder.252 If a man could separate from his wife, but not remarry in her lifetime, the secular law that allowed killing an adulteress provided an obvious answer for the unscrupulous. Hincmar certainly paints a lurid picture of Carolingian noblemen in a passage from De divortio: as soon as it should please them [husbands], provoked with indignation and impious fury, they order them [wives] to be led, as if to the butcher’s, to be torn to pieces, and they order them to be slaughtered by the knives of their cooks, like sheep or pigs; or they themselves butcher them with their own hand and their own sword. By no means do they hand themselves over for their [wives’] sake, in imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might sanctify and cleanse them. Instead, destroying them for ever through the zeal of their lust, they impiously pollute themselves with their blood. Yet in a case of this kind, the more easily murder can be committed by a husband’s zeal, the more justly should legitimate judgement be awaited. 253

Since Hincmar adds, however, that some men who have slaughtered innocent wives then go to take communion with their hands ‘drenched 250 251 252

253

Hincmar, Epistola 135, pp. 82–4; De divortio, Anhang Responsio 5, pp. 244–6. Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, pp. 239–40, c. 46. Wemple, Women, p. 104; Sylvie Joye, ‘L’Accusation de rapt comme motif de séparation des époux durant l’antiquité tradive et le haut moyen âge’, in Emmanuelle Santinelli (ed.), Répudiation, divorce, séparation dans l’Occident médiéval, Recherches valenciennoises 25 (Valenciennes, 2007), pp. 35–51, at p. 50. On Carolingian restrictions on divorce see Chapter 8, pp. 268–71. De divortio, Responsio 5, pp. 144–5: mox ut eis placuerit, indignatione et furore impio concitati, tanquam ad macellum illas duci faciant laniandas, et coquorum suorum gladiis more vervecum atque porcorum emactari praecipiant, vel ipsi etiam manu et mucrone proprio eas trucident, nequaquam semetipsos ad imitationem domini nostri Iesu Christi tradentes pro eis, ut illas sanctiicent et mundent; sed potius zelo libidinis suae ipsas in aeternum disperdentes, et se earum sanguine impie polluentes, cum in huiusmodi causa tanto iustius expectandum esset legitimum iudicium, quanto facilius maritali zelo potest perpetrari homicidium.

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Kinship in recent blood’, such statements are probably more for efect than accurate social reporting, especially since he repeats some of the same passage in an irrelevant context in his treatise on abduction.254 The Merovingian evidence also suggests that indissolubility was not the only factor: relatively easy divorce and remarriage did not prevent ive Merovingian queens being murdered, while no Carolingian ones were.255 The success of Gangulf ’s cult, meanwhile, suggests that some noblemen were willing to see male forgiveness of erring wives as admirable, even if they did not themselves practise such restraint.256 It is possible that Carolingian laymen were more prone to killing their wives than previous generations; it is certain that the Carolingian church was more anxious to stop them doing so. Carolingian moralists say little else speciic about married life to laymen; even Jonas, whose mirror has much to say about marriage, focuses mainly on sexual behaviour. Like other moral texts, however, De institutione laicali does have material discussing other close family ties, especially the father–son relationship. The overall themes of such discussions are noticeably consistent, focusing on the two principles of love and obedience. A model sermon from around 802 sums this up: Let wives be subject to husbands in goodness and chastity, keeping themselves from fornication, sorcery and avarice … Let them nurture their sons in the fear of God … Let husbands love their wives and not say dishonourable [inhonesta] words to them, ruling their houses [domus] in goodness … Let sons love and honour their parents; let them not be disobedient to them, let them avoid theft, homicide and fornication.257

In contrast, family disorder was a symbol of evil: Paulinus claimed that in hell: ‘neither does a mother love her son or daughter, nor does a son honour his father’.258 Angelbert, lamenting the Battle of Fontenoy, called it ‘not the day of the Sabbath, but the cauldron of Satan … Brothers prepare death for brothers, uncles for nephews, nor do sons do their duty to their fathers.’259 The west Frankish bishops complained to Louis the German in 858 that acts worse than those of ‘pagans’ were being 254

255

256 257

258 259

Ibid., p. 145. On the reuse of this material by Hincmar in De coercendo, see Stone, ‘Invention’, p. 439. Nira Pancer, Sans peur et sans vergogne: De l’honneur et des femmes aux premiers temps mérovingiens (VIe–VIIe siècles) (Paris, 2001), p. 286. On the cult of Gangulf, see Stone, ‘Masculinity without conlict’. Missi cuiusdam admonitio, MGH Cap. i:121, p. 240. On the genre, date and authorship of this text, see Buck, Admonitio und Praedicatio, pp. 157–238; Patzold, ‘Normen in Buch’, pp. 334–42. LE 49, col. 253. Angelbert, Versus de bella, stanzas 1–2, p. 262 (Godman’s translation): ‘Sabbati non illud fuit sed Saturni dolium. /… Frater fratri mortem parat, nepoti avunculus, / Filius nec patri suo exhibet quod meruit.’

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Personal power carried out in their dioceses by his men, since ‘they are done by relatives [parentes] to relatives … by brother to brother, against all human and divine laws’.260 The hierarchical aspects of family relationships were never forgotten, with wives and children clearly subordinate to husbands and parents.The father’s legal powers extended to the possibility of his selling his children into servitude;261 unlike some patristic authors, Carolingian moralists did not highlight making such decisions as part of the agonies of the poor.262 Nor did penitentials penalise fathers for abusive treatment of their children.263 Instead, moralists repeatedly emphasised the need for obedience by children and careful control of them by their parents. There was a strongly gendered emphasis, with most moral discussions focused on the father–son relationship. One reason was the political role of such moral injunctions. The rhetoric of ilial obedience and brotherly love formed an important part of discourses around Carolingian rulers: the special pleading used to justify an attack on a royal father or brother showed the potency of these norms, even as they were breached.264 There was no shortage of moralists willing to remind kings and princes that the Bible allowed the killing of disobedient sons. Thegan and Einhard both cited Deuteronomy on the topic, while Hrabanus in 834 sent Louis the Pious a text quoting many of the biblical passages on the need for sons to be subservient.265 Augustine’s views on a king’s duty to punish his erring relatives were similarly provided by Jonas and Hincmar to rulers as political ammunition.266 Yet outside these royal circles, a similar message was propagated in a less immediately political way. Dhuoda’s own conscious maternal authority went hand in hand with an emphasis on the correct relationships between male relatives.267 She stressed the need for William to take care 260 261 262

263

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266 267

Quierzy letter, p. 411, c. 5. See for example Edictum Pistense 864, MGH Cap. ii:273, pp. 325–6, c. 34. See for example Richard Newhauser, The Early History of Greed:The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 41 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 28 on Basil of Caesarea. R. Manselli,‘Vie familiale et ethique sexuelle dans les penitentiels’, Famille et parenté dans l’Occident médiéval: Actes du Colloque de Paris (6–8 juin 1974). Organisé par l’Ecole pratique des hautes études (VIe section) en collaboration avec le Collège de France et l’Ecole française de Rome: communication et débats, Collection de l’Ecole française de Rome 30 (Rome, 1977), pp. 363–78, at p. 366. See for example EA 2:9, cols. 1620–1; Episcoporum de poenitentia, quam Hludowicus imperator professus est, relatio Compendiensis 833, MGH Cap. ii:197, pp. 51–5; AF 858, pp. 49–50. Thegan 53, p. 246; Einhard, Epistola 11, p. 115, citing Deuteronomy 21:18–21; Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 15, pp. 404–9, cc. 1, 3, 4. See Chapter 3, pp. 79–80. On maternal authority see above, p. 176. I disagree here with the interpretation of Claussen, ‘Fathers’ on Dhuoda’s attitude to Bernard.

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Kinship of his little brother Bernard,268 and also explained ‘how you ought to fear, love and be faithful in all things to your lord and progenitor [domnus et genitor] Bernard’.269 Dhuoda provided biblical examples showing that sons who love and obey their fathers are rewarded by God and achieve earthly success, while disobedient sons sufer misfortune, destruction and a shameful death.When William becomes a father, he will naturally want children (proles) who are ‘not rebellious, proud and greedy, but humble, tranquil and obedient’;270 he should likewise behave suitably to his father. Her ideal model is Joseph, ‘who was so loving and obedient to his father that he was even ready to die for him’.271 Jonas, too, has a model of correct familial behaviour in which a framework of gender neutrality is repeatedly overlaid by a masculine emphasis. For example, he entitles two successive chapters of his mirror: ‘That parents [parentes] should instruct their children [liberi] diligently in the fear of God, teaching them how they ought to live chastely and worship God and devote honour to parents. And how much peril should threaten those who neglect to do this’, and ‘That sons [ilii] ought to devote an honourable debt to parents’.272 Jonas’ views on the duties of sons are broadly similar to Dhuoda’s. He too states that sons who refuse to honour their parents injure God and may be punished by him.273 While Dhuoda, however, reminds William that his worldly position comes from Bernard,274 Jonas stresses that even a poor father should be respected. Honour for parents, he states, also involves material support for them.275 Writing to an adult male, Jonas says more than Dhuoda about parental responsibilities; again the emphasis is predominantly on fathers and sons. He quotes St Paul saying fathers should not provoke their sons, but otherwise praises the authoritarian father.276 Parents must be more concerned to teach their sons God’s law than human law, he states, and quotes the fatherly admonitions of Job, David and Tobias. Yet paternal discipline had to go further than words: Jonas reminds his readers of the biblical commands to use corporal punishment on sons.277 He adds: ‘there are very many parents who neglect correcting their sons 268 272 275

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LM 1:7, 10:4, pp. 70, 226. 269 Ibid. 3:1, p. 84. 270 Ibid., p. 86. 271 Ibid. 3:3, p. 90. DIL 2:14, 2:15, cols. 192–6. 273 Ibid. 2:15, col. 195. 274 LM 3:2, p. 88. DIL 2:15, col. 196, quoting Jerome, Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV 2:15; see Jerome, Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV, ed. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen, CCSL 77 (Turnhout, 1964), pp. 127–8: ‘Praecepit, inquit, Dominus vel imbecillitates, vel aetates, vel penurias parentum considerans, ut ilii honorarent, etiam in vitae necessariis ministrandis, parentes suos.’ (‘The Lord commands, he says, considering either the weaknesses or ages or wants of parents, that sons honour their parents also in ministry in the necessities of life.’) DIL 2:14, col. 194, quoting Ephesians 6:4. 277 Ibid., quoting Proverbs 23:13–14, 24.

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Personal power [ilii] with beatings to do good, while they are of an unsteady [lubricus] age. When these sons come to intelligible age, and begin to be devoted to bad works, they cannot easily be restrained from evil by their parents’ punishment.’278 Such parents, Jonas says, would be held responsible for their sons’ sins.279 If violent disciplining of boys showed parental love to Jonas, he worried, in contrast, about other expressions of love. He cites Ambrose’s contradictory comments on the biblical story of Joseph: frequently fatherly love [amor patrius] itself, unless it should be held with moderation, hurts the children [liberi], if either excessive indulgence should cancel fault, or preference for one should turn the others from afection of brotherhood … What therefore? Should Jacob be blamed, since he used to prefer one to the rest? But neither can we remove liberty from parents to love more those whom they believe to merit more, nor ought we to restrain sons’ [ilii] zeal to please more.280

Jonas ends his chapter with a biblical exemplar that haunted Carolingian moral thought on fathers: the Old Testament priest Eli, who brought disaster on himself and his whole family, by his laxness towards his sons.281 The same warning igure appears in the mirrors of Dhuoda and Sedulis Scottus, making disciplining of sons into an urgent matter of personal preservation.282 In contrast to this intensive discussion of the treatment of sons, moral texts say little about how fathers must treat daughters. The one biblical passage mentioning girls that Jonas cites is Ecclesiasticus 7:25–6: ‘If you have sons, teach them and bend them from their childhood. If you have daughters, preserve their bodies and do not show a cheerful face [hilaris facies] to them.’283 Jonas comments only in passing on the need for moral instruction and care of girls. He cites Jerome’s comments in a letter to Laeta that someone who wants to protect their daughter from a snake should want to protect them from the dangers of the world, but makes no other use of Jerome’s detailed instructions in this letter on the correct raising of a Christian girl.284 278 279 280

281 283

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Ibid. 2:14, col. 195. Cf. Radulf of Bourges, Capitula, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH Cap. episc. 1, p. 251, c. 23. DIL 2:14, cols. 194–5, quoting Ambrose, De Joseph ii:5; see Ambrose, De Joseph, ed. Karl Schenkl, Sancti Ambrosii opera. Pars altera, CSEL 32:2 (Vienna, 1897), pp. 73–122, at p. 75. 1 Samuel 2:12–36. 282 LM 4:8, p. 154; LRC 19, p. 85. DIL 2:14, col. 194. On one example of a Carolingian mother having her daughter beaten, see Garver, Women, pp. 150–1. DIL 2:14, col. 194, quoting Jerome, Epistola 107; see Jerome, Epistulae, ed. Isidore Hilberg, 3 vols., CSEL 54–6 (Vienna, 1910–18),Vol. ii, p. 297, c. 6. On this letter see Gillian Cloke, ‘This female man of God’:Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450 (London, 1995), p. 66.

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Kinship The few other passing references to fathers and daughters in moral texts have the same focus on female chastity. The Council of Pavia in 850 warns patresfamilias about the evils of delaying the marriage of their marriageable daughters. They are liable to penance if their daughters are ‘corrupted’ as a result while in their household. The penance varies depending on whether such fathers have been negligent, or if they have acquiesced in the sin, in which case they receive more serious penance than the participants.285 Wulfad of Bourges similarly warns all laymen against promoting or condoning intercourse with their female relatives in return for anyone’s favour.286 Generally, however, men are told far less about dealing with their female relatives than with their male ones. Kin and friends As discussed above, the importance of the Sippe (extended kin group) as a social, legal, or political institution is now being questioned by researchers.287 Moral texts say relatively little about duties towards distant kin, although there is implicit evidence for such moral duties as prayer, support in feuds and patronage.288 When the groups of kin involved in such actions are visible, however, they are still largely orientated around a relatively restricted group of relatives: parents, spouse, siblings, children.289 Kin, and sometimes friends, were also important in promoting and recognising marriages.290 The special responsibility of relatives and friends to bury the dead and pray for them was occasionally mentioned in moral texts, rather than simply assumed. Jonas refers to such a duty when arguing for a general duty by Christians of such care for the dead, while Wulfad of Bourges told the laity of his diocese that they should distribute the alms of their dying relatives and friends faithfully, and ensure that anything these relatives had wrongfully taken from the church or the less powerful was restored.291 Carolingian reformers explicitly discussed relatives and friends most often in connection with violence or patronage. Capitularies repeatedly 285 287 288

289

290 291

MGH Conc. 3:23, p. 224, c. 9. 286 Wulfad of Bourges, Epistola 27, p. 191. See above, pp. 199–200. Althof , Verwandte, pp. 77–82. On the consent of kin in the texts of charters, see Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 240–2; on their role in oath-helping, see Murray, Germanic Kinship Structure, pp. 157–62. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 36–8, 383–7. Bouchard, ‘Family structure’, pp. 642–3 discusses the relatives for whom Dhuoda wants William to pray. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 265–7. DIL 3:15, col. 262; Wulfad of Bourges, Epistola 27, pp. 190–1.

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Personal power condemn the killing of kin;292 they also hint at the motives that might lead to such acts. Louis the Pious directed that the inheritance of someone who murdered a relative should go to the isc.293 In addition, the laws in 803 punished with death the man who killed a relative he feared was trying to reduce him to servitude; Charlemagne in 811 referred to men who killed kin to prevent them forcing them into the host.294 Such behaviour was seen as horrifying: the Capitulare missorum generale of 802 wanted killers of relatives kept in custody ‘lest they contaminate [quoinquinent] the rest of the people’.295 Yet the close interconnections within the nobility meant that the political rivals a man might need to ight and kill to dominate a region could also be his distant kin.296 Male relatives and friends also played a key role in acts of revenge. Scholarship is now increasingly questioning the idea of ‘feud’ in the Early Middle Ages: the long-term confrontation of two wide kin groups, marked by periodic reciprocal violence. More careful analysis shows the disconnected nature of most acts of revenge, the relatively narrow range of relatives involved, the important role played by friends and dependants, and the peaceful alternatives available.297 Guy Halsall argues for the rejection of the term ‘feud’ altogether and its replacement with the term ‘customary vengeance’.298 Régine Le Jan sees an ‘ideological rupture’ in the attitude of Carolingian rulers to such violence.299 Charlemagne certainly made repeated attempts to prevent all revenge killing and to force disputing parties to make peace via royal judgements. Apart from one early capitulary of Louis the Pious, however, these attempts were not maintained after 814.300 The few later rulers who legislated against vengeance by friends, lords and relatives aimed only to restrict the circumstances justifying such vengeance. Louis II in 850 and Carloman in 884 banned vengeance taken on behalf of those killed as bandits or when resisting

292 293 294

295 296 297

298 300

Hartmann, ‘Zu Efektivität’, pp. 45–6. Capitulare pro lege habendum Wormatiense 829, MGH Cap. ii:193, p. 18, c. 2. Capitulare legibus additum 803, MGH Cap. i:39, p. 113, c. 5; Capitula de rebus exercitalibus in placito tractanda 811, MGH Cap. i:73, p. 165, c. 10. MGH Cap. i:33, p. 98, c. 37. See Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 87–8. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The bloodfeud of the Franks’, in ‘The Long-Haired Kings’ and Other Studies in Frankish History (London, 1962), pp. 121–47; Peter Sawyer, ‘The bloodfeud: Fact and iction’, in Kirsten Hastrup and Preben Meulengracht Sørensen (eds.), Tradition og historieskrivning: Kilderne til Nordens ældste historie, Acta Jutlandica 63, Humanistisk serie 61 (Aarhus, 1987), pp. 27–38; Guy Halsall, ‘Violence and society: An introductory survey’, in Halsall, Violence and Society, pp. 1–45, at pp. 19–29. Ibid., pp. 28–9. 299 Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 91. Ibid., pp. 91–2 lists the relevant capitularies.

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Kinship legal authorities.301 Louis also threatened to punish such acts carried out during military expeditions.302 Vengeance, in principle, remained morally acceptable throughout the Carolingian period, even to clerics. A letter of Alcuin to Charlemagne asks for his favour for Torhtmund ‘who bravely revenged the blood of his lord’ (King Ethelred of Northumbria).303 The duels in Waltharius are driven by revenge for fallen relatives and comrades, even as Walter unsuccessfully tries to use his friendship ties to Hagan to prevent their ighting.304 At the end of the ninth century, both Abbo and the Bavarian continuator of the Fulda Annals show speeches to warriors before battle urging them to revenge relatives killed by pagans.305 As the previous chapter shows, there was a deep ambivalence towards the favour and career advancement that well-placed friends or relatives could bring a nobleman or noblewoman. Such behaviour was at once expected, even admirable, and simultaneously a potential threat to the common good. Perhaps as a result, wider criticism of the use of kin networks for advancement, beyond some speciic ‘public’ situations, was relatively rare. Paulinus compared ‘secular’ friendship unfavourably to Jesus’ friendship: ‘For the friendship of the world depends upon either money [lucrum] or beneits or diverse honores, but the friendship of the Saviour consists in loving him and neighbours.’306 As usual, Jonas has the sharpest social critique, complaining about men who delayed marriage in order to gain ‘worldly honores’ and strayed sexually in the meantime, and about those who became godparents motivated more by ‘love of the world’ than concern for their godchild’s salvation.307 In contrast to sexual morality, the basic norms of family morality seem to have been widely shared by laymen and clerics.308 Potentially, however, there was conlict between the duties owed to one’s kin and those owed either to God, or to the state. The sources, however, rarely emphasise moral conlicts between religion and relatives. Detachment from kin ties was part of radical Christian rhetoric, but found few echoes in Carolingian moralists.309 Hrabanus Maurus, for example, even as a monk, 301

302 303 304 305 306 309

Hludowicii II capitulare Papiense 850, MGH Cap. ii:213, pp. 86–7, c. 3; Karolomanni capitulare Vernense 884, MGH Cap. ii:287, pp. 372, 374–5, cc. 3, 10, 11. Constitutio de expeditione Beneventana 866, MGH Cap. ii:218, p. 96, c. 7. Alcuin, Epistola 231, MGH Epp. 4, p. 376. Waltharius, 686–701, 1239–61, 1268–78. Abbo, i:454–5 (Adalaelmus); AF(B) 891, p. 120 (Arnulf). LE 8, col. 203. 307 DIL 2:2; 1–6, cols. 170, 133. 308 See Chapter 9, pp. 288–9. Patristic authors had already produced some noticeably ‘pro-family’ exegesis of family-unfriendly texts such as Matthew 10:37, Mark 3:31–5 and Luke 14:26: see Andrew S. Jacobs, ‘“Let him guard pietas”: Early Christian exegesis and the ascetic family’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003), 265–81.

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Personal power provided political support for his brother Guntram.310 The same ambivalence is seen in some hagiography. Paschasius Radbertus stresses Adalard’s (unsuccessful) attempts to lee from his kin and friends, while himself eagerly giving details of Adalard’s brothers and sisters.311 Both Paulinus and Dhuoda told their lay recipient that a man’s love and loyalty to God should come before that to his family;312 Paulinus included among the worldly things that a man should not love ‘a crowd of friends’ and ‘the excuse of a wife or the grace of sons’.313 Yet such ideas existed at a purely abstract level: only kings were speciically told that they might need to punish their own kin in order to satisfy an angry God.314 Conlicts between loyalty to family and to rulers may have struck closer to home. Dhuoda’s view that William’s loyalty to his father came before that to his king was not one that rulers themselves would have appreciated.315 Nor did other lay nobles necessarily share it: Nithard’s paternal family seems to have become important to him only after his hopes from Charles the Bald faded.316 Other Frankish sources, however, choose not to show us the dilemma of conlicts between loyalty to Carolingian king and a noble’s own family, only the dilemma of which member of the Carolingian family to support. Conclusion The interest of Carolingian moralists in diferent types of personal relationships varied: they have far more to say about the treatment of sons than slaves, for example. Nor did they see such relationships as equivalent. Hincmar, discussing the treatment of wives in De divortio, drew a social conclusion from the tenth commandment: The law of the Almighty God divides all things into three kinds, which men are seen to have subject to them in earthly matters or to possess, since, in the Ten Commandments, He deines it and says, Neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his slave nor his slave girl, nor his ox, nor his sheep, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his [Exodus 20:7]. In these words, without doubt, the dignity of the wife should be considered in one way, the condition of servi and ancillae in another, and in another the vileness of brute animals or unfeeling things.317

Yet if wives were not the same as servi, and nor were the unfree the same as animals, there are still parallels in all the relationships discussed 310 312 314 316 317

Innes, State, pp. 200–2, 208–9. 311 VA 11–13, 32–5, cols. 1514–15, 1526–8. LE 21, col. 214; LM 3:2, p. 88. 313 LE 8, 13, 21, cols. 203, 208. See above, p. 206. 315 LM 3:2, p. 88. Nelson, ‘Public Histories’, pp. 279–81. De divortio, Responsio 5, p. 145; repeated in De coercendo 12, col. 1026.

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Conclusion in this chapter. Even though powerful laymen were not generally seen as more virtuous than other men, they were expected to set a good moral example to those subordinate to them.318 The emphasis on social hierarchy also led to moral asymmetry. Moralists’ views on such relationships can be summed up as expecting the humility, idelity and obedience of subordinates and the justice, generosity and discipline (tempered with mercy) of their superiors. Such ideals were applied as a model for any relationship from God and man downwards.The emphasis was irmly on the duty of subordinates; the relationship was far from the mutual Treue lauded by some German scholars.319 Alcuin told Arn of Salzburg: ‘Bring encouragements to each individual according to the measure of his condition [conditio] or person: justice and mercy to the powerful and judges, to juniors, obedience, humility and idelity to their seniores.’320 Even moralists who stressed the natural equality or brotherhood of all did not want the social hierarchy disturbed, but merely maintained with a little more humanity.321 There was little moral concern about the lowest social groups, such as the unfree. For subordinates of higher status, such as the free men of lords, or sons, there are extra demands made of superiors, but these remain largely negative: that they should not deny justice to their subordinates nor treat them unfairly. The superior was rarely expected to show unrestricted ‘love’ to those subject to him; fear and even violence in such relationships might be applauded. Jonas, following Caesarius of Arles, was unusual in telling his noble audience: ‘Let us be humble, dearest brothers, not only to our seniores, but also to our equals and juniors.’322 More common is the attitude shown in Paulinus in his ‘prayer of the soul’: ‘Make me … to ofer obedience to my seniores and charity to my equals: to show the grace of suitable love [gratia opportunae dilectionis] to my juniors.’323 The moral norms of any personal relationship could never be separated from the social hierarchy involved. 318 319

320 321

322

323

See Chapter 4, pp. 123–33. See for example Walter Schlesinger,‘Randbemerkungen zu drei Aufsätzen über Sippe, Gefolgschaft und Treue’, Alteuropa und die moderne Gesellschaft: Festschrift für Otto Brunner (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 11–59, at pp. 38–9. Alcuin, Epistola 184, p. 310. Anton, Fürstenspiegel, pp. 365–9, and Janet L. Nelson, ‘Peers in the early Middle Ages’, in Pauline Staford, Janet L. Nelson and Jane Martindale (eds.), Law, Laity and Solidarities: Essays in Honour of Susan Reynolds (Manchester, 2001), pp. 27–46, at pp. 30–1 list the main statements made on this. DIL 3:2, cols. 235–6, adapting Caesarius of Arles, Sermo 233:6 and Sermo 235:6; see Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, ed. Germain Morin, 2 vols., CCSL 103–4 (Turnhout, 1953),Vol. ii, pp. 928, 939. LE 66, col. 281.

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Chapter 7

POWER A ND WEALTH

Most early medieval nobles were distinguished by their wealth as well as their power. The highest Merovingian nobility were already extraordinarily rich by European standards.1 Such wealth took a variety of forms. Most signiicant was land, vital not only as a source of rent and marketable crops, but as a key component in patronage networks.2 The importance of land is shown by a passing comment in the Gesta Fontanellensis about an abbot who had given away monastic land in beneice: ‘Indeed, such rectors are worse than pagans, since were a pagan to burn the place with ire, yet he would not take the land with him.’3 Carolingian wills show both the quantity of treasure that nobles held, and its cultural signiicance: the will of Eberhard and Gisela makes important symbolic legacies of weapons and clothing as well as books.4 Poetry, too, expresses the emotional force of precious objects: Waltharius, the Paderborn epic and Ermoldus’ poems are full of gold and jewels.5 There was also a long tradition of religious texts identifying such ‘treasure’ with goodness.6 Less celebrated, but also important economically, were the large numbers of the unfree that the elite owned: saleable as property, but also a vital source of all kinds of labour.7 Such concentrations of wealth alongside sometimes extreme poverty raised obvious moral issues for Carolingian authors. 1 3

4 5 6 7

Wickham, Framing, p. 51. 2 See below, pp. 221–2. Gesta sanctorum patrum coenobii Fontanellensis, ed. and trans. Pascal Pradié, Chronique des abbés de Fontanelle (Saint-Wandrille), Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 40 (Paris, 1999), 6:3. On this text, see Pradié’s introduction, pp. vii–cxliv. See below, p. 236. See for example Waltharius, 290–300; Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, 187–252; In honorem, 572–5. Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 63–84. See Chapter 6, pp. 177–8.

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Power and wealth Any consideration of Carolingian thought on wealth needs to situate such thought in an earlier Christian tradition that had made personal wealth an important ethical topic, while rarely discussing the increasing corporate wealth of the church.8 In the Old Testament economic success is the standard reward for keeping God’s Word.9 In contrast to this, and to Graeco-Roman traditions, the New Testament introduced a new ethical viewpoint, both in its belief that wealth was itself a problem and in its praise of the poor.10 The rich man’s way to heaven was more fraught than that of the poor. Jesus’ teaching, however, combined both radical criticism of property and a seeming acceptance of its use.11 Theologians from the second century onwards thus debated whether Jesus’ most radical statements on the need for renunciation of wealth were intended to apply literally and universally. Most commonly, a compromise was reached: as Martin Hengel put it: ‘the traditional outright condemnation of the rich was maintained, but they were allowed a chance of salvation if they lived modestly and distributed their possession among the poor’.12 The later Fathers largely followed this line, focusing on the need for acquiring wealth justly and avoiding luxury. It was the misuse of riches that was the problem rather than their possession itself.13 Yet as John McGuckin comments: ‘the main lines of the [patristic] tradition continued to represent a constant unease over the issue of riches’; Jerome, for example, claimed: ‘All riches come from iniquity, and unless one person sufered loss, another would not make gain.’14 Scholarship on the Carolingian period has been particularly interested in studying the pauperes, both in terms of identifying the groups labelled as such,15 and in observing the methods used to deal with the social 8 9

10 11

12 13

14 15

Janes, God and Gold, p. 2. Dov Paris, ‘An economic look at the Old Testament’, in S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon (eds.), Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice (Leiden, 1998), pp. 39–103, at p. 46. M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1985), p. 38. Martin Hengel, Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of a Social History of Early Christianity, trans. John Bowden (London, 1974), pp. 23–30. Ibid., p. 58. J. A. McGuckin, ‘The vine and the elm tree: The patristic interpretation of Jesus’ teachings on wealth’, in W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds.), The Church and Wealth: Papers Read at the 1986 Summer Meeting and the 1987 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 24 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 1–14. Cf. Janes, God and Gold, pp. 154–7. McGuckin, ‘Vine’, pp. 13–14 (quoting Jerome, Epistola 120:1). Bosl, ‘Potens und pauper’ is groundbreaking on this. See also Otto Gerhard Oexle, ‘Potens und pauper im Frühmittelalter’, in Wolfgang Harms and Klaus Speckenbach (eds.), Bildhafte Rede in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit: Probleme ihrer Legitimation und ihrer Funktion (Tübingen, 1992), pp. 131–49.

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Power and wealth problem of ‘poverty’.16 While there have been several general studies of wealth and its meaning in the Anglo-Saxon period,17 analysis of the ‘rich’ in the Carolingian world has been largely implicit, for example, in the study of wills and gift-exchange practices.18 Studies speciically on the morality of wealth in the Early Middle Ages have mainly focused on topics such as avarice19 and usury,20 or particular types of sources, such as pentientials and legal sources.21 The main moral problems caused by wealth are shown by Isidore of Seville’s division of avaritia into the desire for the acquisition of possessions and the desire for their retention.22 I shall therefore look at what Carolingian moralists had to say on wealth and the rich generally, then at their moral concerns around exploiting economic resources and acquiring wealth, and inally at how they argued that wealth should be used. The image of the ric h Some Carolingian authors regard wealth not simply as morally neutral, but as an indicator of virtue. Dhuoda certainly sees wealth as unproblematic in a way foreign to patristic writers.23 Her wish that William may prosper both in this world and the next is perhaps normal for a mother, especially one who herself had inancial troubles: at the end of her manual she asks William to repay any of her debts outstanding on her death.24 Less usual is her drawing on biblical examples to argue that virtue was 16

17

18

19

20

21 22 23

24

See for example Siegfried Epperlein, ‘Zur weltlichen und kirchlichen Armenfürsorge im karolingischen Imperium: Ein Beitrag zur Wirtschaftspolitik im Frankenreich’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (1963), 41–60; Boshof, ‘Untersuchungen’; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Making ends meet: Wealth and poverty in the Carolingian church’, in Sheils and Wood, Church and Wealth, pp. 25–35. See for example Janet L. Nelson, ‘Wealth and wisdom: The politics of Alfred the Great’, in Joel Rosenthal (ed.), Kings and Kingship, Acta (State University of New York at Binghamton, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies) 11 (Binghamton, NY, 1986), pp. 31–52; Godden, ‘Money’; Robin Fleming, ‘The new wealth, the new rich and the new political style in late Anglo-Saxon England’, in John Gillingham (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies xxIII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2000 (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 1–22. See for example Matthew Innes, ‘Charlemagne’s will: Piety, politics and the imperial succession’, English Historical Review 112 (1997), 833–55; Cohen and de Jong, Medieval Transformations. Lester K. Little, ‘Pride goes before avarice: Social change and the vices in Latin Christendom’, American Historical Review 76 (1971), 16–49; Newhauser, Early History of Greed. Robert P. Maloney, ‘The teachings of the Fathers on usury: An historical study on the development of Christian thinking’, Vigiliae Christianae 27 (1973), 241–65; Hans-Jörg Gilomen, ‘Wucher und Wirtschaft im Mittelalter’, Historische Zeitschrift 250 (1990), 254–301. See for example Newhauser, ‘Modus’; Siems, Handel. Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 4–5. Yuri Bessmertny, ‘Le Monde vu par une femme noble au ixe siècle: La Perception du monde dans l’aristocratie carolingienne’, Le moyen âge 93 (1987), 161–84. LM 10:4, p. 226.

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The image of the rich rewarded both materially and iguratively: ‘In truth, when the irst of our fathers and ancestors cried out to the Lord and put their hope in him, we believe that they, because of their many great merits … well-provided with rich things, both in spirit and body, were wholly saved.’25 Nor does Dhuoda see such rewards as conined to Old Testament times. If William loves God, in return, ‘granting you the world’s prosperity very abundantly, he will convert all your enemies to peace’.26 Such prosperity was not just for an individual: if a man fears the Lord, ‘his descendants [semen] will be powerful on earth, for glory and riches will remain forever in his house’.27 She sees striving for earthly things as not only natural, but a model for how one should strive after heavenly rewards.28 In contrast Dhuoda highlights loss of wealth as one of the punishments of the wicked: the villainous Haman in the book of Esther is left ‘emptyhanded [inanis] with all his household’ before his execution.29 She also warns William that those who attack their own parents ‘are scarcely able to regain their own property’ (perhaps there is a memory here of the sons of Louis the Pious).30 Yuri Bessmertny argues that Dhuoda was distinctive in seeing riches as natural for nobles, and ignoring the possibility of unjust acquisition of wealth.31 Yet Dhuoda’s contrast with other Carolingian authors can be exaggerated. She admits, for example, that the accumulation of wealth can be spiritually empty: even a rich man can have his soul ‘become vile in poverty’.32 Alcuin, like Dhuoda, saw worldly riches as God-given. He comments in De virtutibus et vitiis: ‘There are very many who have no share in ields, none in vines, none in the riches of the world. We ought to provide for their wants from that abundance which God has given to us.’33 Writing to Charlemagne’s treasurer Megenfrid, he says that the God-given ‘talents of good work’ are given to all, not just to clerics, and they include the ‘talent of riches’.34 More generally, Janet Nelson has shown the frequent use in the period of the biblical patriarchs (non-royal laymen, often wealthy and powerful) as exemplars for both kings and nobles.35 It was acceptable for lay people to be rich: while some early monastic texts claim that it is sinful to seek 25 27 28

29 32 35

Ibid. 4:8, p. 152. Cf. ibid. 4:2, p. 130. 26 Ibid. 1:7, p. 68. Ibid. 4:8, p. 152, adapting Psalm 111:2–3. Ibid. 2:2, p. 74: ‘Tu cum pulsaveris in saeculo et adquisieris, gaudebis, sicut mos est: ortor te admoneo ut petitio vel adquisitio tua sit non solum hic, set etiam in futuro.’ (‘When you ask in this world and receive, you rejoice, as is customary: I admonish you to pray so that your request and acquisition may not only be for here, but also for the future life.’) Ibid. 3:7, p. 102. 30 Ibid. 3:1, p. 86. 31 Bessmertny, ‘Monde’, pp. 176–8. LM 4:8, p. 150. 33 DVV 17, col. 625. 34 Alcuin, Epistola 111, p. 160. Nelson, ‘Patriarchs’.

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Power and wealth the return of goods wrongfully taken from one, there is only mention of this concept in texts addressed to lay noblemen, in Jonas’ mirror.36 Yet riches are not invariably seen positively by Carolingian moralists: the rich man’s attitude to his wealth had to be right. Alcuin, accused by Felix of Urgel of having 20,000 servi, retorted that Felix was ‘ignorant about the spirit in which someone might have the world. For it is one thing to have the world, it is another to be had by the world.’37 Avarice was seen as an important threat to the social order in the Early Middle Ages.38 Some authors saw avarice as a widespread sin;39 Theodulf comments: ‘every age and order is worried by this disease, maiden, boy, old man, each sex together’.40 More commonly, however, avarice was seen as particularly a danger for the rich man. There was frequent use of the metaphor of the dropsical man’s insatiable desire for water: the more he has, the more he wants.41 Even Theodulf, despite his seeing the vice of avarice as common to all, uses similar images of consuming ires and blood-sucking leeches.42 Avarice, however, was a more slippery idea than it might appear. Augustine had seen avarice as not merely a matter of material greed, but excessive desires generally.43 Carolingian authors show a far more restrictive understanding of avaritia, in which a desire for possession was not itself wrong. Alcuin, for example, deined avarice as ‘an excessive desire for acquiring, having or keeping riches’, and this was followed by Halitgar’s penitential.44 Dhuoda warns William: ‘If riches low in, do not turn your heart to them beyond measure [supra modum].’45 Hincmar comments that ‘There are some rich men, who could have enough from their own things, if they had wanted to impose a measure on desire [modum cupiditati].’46 Similarly, Waltharius condemns not desire for treasure itself, but only insatiable greed.47 There are also noticeable omissions in discussions of the morality of wealth. Dhuoda shows the biblical Dives sufering in hell, but omits all discussion of why he was there.48 None of the lay mirrors refer to Jesus’ 36 37

38 40

41 42 44

45 47

DIL 2:23, col. 215; on this concept, see Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 8–9. Alcuin, Epistola 200, p. 332: ‘ignorans, quo animo quis habeat saeculum. Aliud est habere saeculum, aliud est haberi a saeculo.’ Newhauser, ‘Modus’, p. 2. 39 Ibid., p. 21. Paraenesis, 439–40, p. 505: ‘Tabe fatigatur hac aetas omnis et ordo, / Virgo, puer, vetulus, sexus uterque simul.’ Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 18–19 lists uses of this metaphor; it is also used in DIL 3:6, col. 245. Paraenesis, 347–52, p. 502. 43 Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 2–3. DVV 30, p. 31: ‘Auaritia est nimia diuitiarum adquirendi, habendi, uel tenendi cupiditas’; Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 18–19. LM 5:9, p. 178. 46 See below, pp. 224–5. See Chapter 3, pp. 104–5. 48 LM 8:13, p. 202, referring to Luke 16:19–31.

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The image of the rich comment about camels and eyes of needles.49 Paulinus in his Liber exhortationis is the only mirror writer to mention the incident provoking this statement: Jesus’ meeting with the rich young man, whom he told to give away all his possessions.50 Not all moral discussions about the rich, however, would have been so comforting to prosperous lay recipients. Paulinus’ reference to the rich young man of the Bible is part of a wider pattern in which he repeatedly condemns worldliness in all its forms, one of which is love of wealth. One of the characteristics of the man who is dead to the world is that: ‘gold or arm-rings and all of the false riches of this world do not inlame him … the power [crassitudo] of horses and love for them do not invite him’.51 An analysis of Paulinus’ discussion of ‘riches’ in the Liber exhortationis, however, shows interesting priorities. He makes relatively little mention of some important forms of wealth, such as land (referred to in three chapters of the text)52 and servi (mentioned only once).53 In contrast, gold and silver, and expensive clothes, are referred to at least seven times each, and arm-rings (armillae) appear three times.54 There are obvious parallels to the type of booty gained in warfare: after the battle of Andernach, for example, the Fulda annalist records the amount taken ‘in gold, silver, clothes, arms, armour, horses and diferent kinds of apparatus’.55 This again suggests that Paulinus’ concerns were aroused by the speciic circumstances of the Avar campaigns.56 In Paulinus’ epitaph for Eric of Friuli in 799, in contrast, he describes Eric in purely conventional terms as generous to churches and a father to the poor. There is no suggestion that Eric despised worldly wealth.57 This may simply be a relection of the genre, but it is also possible that Paulinus’ worries about the corrupting nature of wealth were now less pressing. Jonas goes furthest among the mirror writers in attacking the rich, starting from two arguments about ‘nature’. One is that God has conceded some goods in common to man, such as wild animals. It is therefore ‘deplorable’ that the poor are robbed and attacked by the powerful in order to protect their hunting rights.58 Jonas devotes a whole chapter to the broader argument that all humans are naturally equal.59 He quotes extensively from a sermon attributed to Augustine,60 about the rich and poor being 49 51 54

55 57 59

Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25. 50 LE 30, col. 226. Ibid. 16, col. 209. 52 Ibid. 8, 21, 53, cols. 203, 216, 258. 53 Ibid. 53, col. 258. Gold and silver: ibid. 8, 13, 16, 21, 30, 38, 53, 54, 62, cols. 203, 208, 209, 216, 226, 258, 261, 271; clothes: ibid. 11, 16, 17, 21, 30, 38, 53, cols. 206, 209, 210, 216, 226, 240, 258; armillae: ibid. 11, 16, 21, cols. 206, 209, 216. AF 876, p. 89. 56 See Chapter 3, pp. 105–6. Paulinus, Carmen 2, p. 131, stanza 5. 58 DIL 2:23, col. 215. Ibid. 2:22, cols. 213–15. 60 Augustine, Sermo 61, PL 38, cols. 411–12, cc. 7–8.

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Power and wealth indistinguishable apart from transitory riches, and concludes: ‘Let them [the powerful and rich] certainly recognise those who show themselves in this world to be weak and low in reinement and appearance and dissimilar in wealth, to be equal and similar to themselves by nature.’61 Elsewhere in his mirror, Jonas complains that some people show honour only to rich parents and to rich priests, not to poor ones.62 He contrasts attitudes to wealth in the time of the apostles with contemporary life: ‘since love of earthly businesses is preferred by some to the doctrine of the apostles; parsimony to communicating with broken bread; coldness of charity and desire to strive for others’ possessions, rather than giving from one’s own’.63 Theodulf similarly stresses that pauper and dives are equal by nature,64 and tells the wealthy to avoid robbing the poor or making false accusations against them.65 Instead, they should forgive them their ‘debts’, as they hope for forgiveness from God.66 The echoes of the Lord’s Prayer, however, make it diicult to be sure whether Theodulf was demanding actual debt relief or more generalised forgiveness. Hincmar also had a continuing concern about the ‘poor’, both those without money and the powerless, linking their situation to the rich in unusually direct ways.67 He stressed that God was ofended when the poor were oppressed.68 Hincmar saw avarice as the root cause of social evils, and De cavendis, unlike other mirrors, discussed the distorting efects of avarice on the personality.69 Hincmar observes that when the avaricious man has gained what he wants, he worries about losing it:‘He fears another more powerful man, lest he sufer his violence; when he sees a pauper, he is suspected as a thief.’70 The rich man, then, held a morally ambiguous place in Carolingian thought: sometimes still the oppressor of the early Christian world, but sometimes a man whose wealth was morally irreprehensible, as Godgiven. A more awkward question, however, was how such riches might be legitimately obtained. T he means to wealth Classical Roman thought had an explicit hierarchy of means to gain wealth, with some occupations seen as unsuitable for the nobility.71 61

62 64 66 69 71

DIL 2:22, col. 215: ‘Eos vero quos in hoc saeculo inirmos abjectosque cultu, et cute, et opibus se impares conspiciunt, natura pares, et aequales sibi esse prorsus agnoscant.’ Ibid. 2:15, 2:20, cols. 196, 208–9. 63 Ibid. 1:20, col. 164. See Chapter 4, p. 125. 65 Paraenesis, 913–14, p. 516. Ibid., 941–4, p. 517. 67 Devisse, ‘Pauperes’. 68 Ibid., p. 279. Ibid., pp. 286–7. 70 De cavendis i:2, p. 138. Cicero, De oiciis, trans. P. G. Walsh, Cicero: On obligations (Oxford, 2000), i:150–1, pp. 50–1.

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The morality of land Despite some exceptions, such ideals do seem to have inluenced the behaviour of the Roman elite.72 These patterns are not, however, visible in Carolingian society. Cicero, for example, condemned toll collection, but the Gesta Fontanellensis shows the noble palace chaplain Gervold as collecting tolls at Quentovic and other ports.73 Small-scale commerce also seems to have been an acceptable activity of Carolingian elites, unlike Roman ones: the claim that ‘almost all the clerics’ in Laon sold crops in an usurious manner implies that such local agricultural sales were in principle socially acceptable.74 However, it is signiicant how one-sided Carolingian sources are when discussing means to wealth. As Harald Siems points out, the capitularies are not interested in ordinary economic business, but only abuses that afected the social order.75 The same is true of most other Carolingian moral texts. While the Old Testament is positive about at least some forms of wealth creation,76 a look at how Carolingian moralists discuss some speciic ways of gaining wealth shows a very diferent picture. Above all, moralists’ discussions of the landed economy show continued uneasiness. T he morality of land Land in the Carolingian world was not simply an economic resource. The possession of land was an important symbol of noble power,77 although it is hard to ind sources in which nobility explicitly rested on the possession of land.78 Settlement names derived from personal names show how aristocratic inluence could be written into the landscapes.79 More importantly, nobles’ relationships with kin, local monasteries and clients were deined using land via practices of inheritance, exchange and donation. Such transactions went beyond simple transfers of rights to create a complex network of moral claims on pieces of land: Matthew Innes talks of the ‘social meanings of property rights’.80 Unlike some forms of 72 73 74

75 76 77

78

79

Finley, The Ancient Economy, pp. 41–61. Gesta sanctorum patrum coenobii Fontanellensis 12:2, p. 136. Gerhard Schmitz, ‘Wucher in Laon: Eine neue Quelle zu Karl dem Kahlen und Hinkmar von Reims’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 37 (1981), 529–58, at p. 556. Siems, Handel, pp. 448–9. Paris, ‘Economic look’, pp. 49–50. A. Gurevic, ‘Représentations et attitudes à l’égard de la propriété pendant le haut moyen âge’, Annales 27 (1972), 523–47, at pp. 525–9; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 108–11. Wilhelm Störmer, Früher Adel: Studien zur politischen Führungsschicht im fränkischen-deutschen Reich vom 8. bis 11. Jahrhundert, 2 vols., Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 6 (Stuttgart, 1973), Vol i., pp. 23, 98–116. Ibid., pp. 55–7. 80 Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 249.

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Power and wealth power, the exploitation of the social possibilities of land was available to women as well as men.81 Nevertheless, gendered inheritance practices meant that women generally had less control over landed resources than men of similar social standing.82 Moral attitudes towards the economic and social use of land were complicated by the fact that ‘practices of property’ were not static. Innes, for example, argues for changes in the rights over land in the Rhine Valley in the seventh century, with the reintroduced documentary form of the charter used to record new ways of creating social exchanges between lay people and churches via land transactions.83 The basic form of property holding in the Carolingian world was still the inheritance of family land,84 but three developments from the late Merovingian period had substantial efects: changing land distributions, the move towards manorialisation (bipartite estates) and the increasing granting of land in beneice. These changes in landholding have traditionally been seen as the early stages of the development of ‘feudalism’,85 but recent research has questioned this concept, and studies of how power was expressed via land and lordship now tend to avoid prior attempts to it this into a ‘feudal’ pattern.86 The irst important development was an increasing polarisation of landholding. Individual lay and clerical nobles, as well as churches, are visible acquiring land in selected areas, as part of a ‘drift towards large and ecclesiastical landownership in the early ninth century’.87 In some cases, such land may already have been worked by tenants, thus merely changing their landlords. Bipartite estates, where dependants owed labour services on demesne land, as well as working their own plots, had begun to develop from the seventh century. These tied tenants could be free or unfree, but their economic ties led to their consistently being called servi in charters. Such bipartite estates, however, existed alongside other forms of organisation. Lay estates in the Carolingian period appear often to have been cultivated directly by unfree dependants, normally called mancipia. Matthew Innes estimates, for example, that less than 1 per cent of the gifts to Lorsch by 81 82

83 85 86 87

Hammer, ‘Land sales’, p. 72; Nelson, ‘Wary widow’. On women’s landholding see David Herlihy, ‘Land, family and women in Continental Europe, 701–1200’, Traditio 18 (1962), pp. 89–120; Katherine Bullimore, ‘Folcwin of Rankweil: The world of a Carolingian local oicial’, Early Medieval Europe 13 (2005), 43–77, at pp. 65–7. Innes, State, pp. 73–7. 84 Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 261. See for example Ganshof, Feudalism, pp. 22–3, 40–3. See Chapter 6, p. 189. Chris Wickham, Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400–1000 (London, 1981), pp. 103–4.

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The morality of land laymen were of manors.88 Werner Rösener sees some manorialisation of lay estates in Alemannia, but later than for royal and clerical estates.89 The eighth and ninth centuries also saw more ‘beneices’ granted out, although the term beneicium could cover a wide range of types of grant. As well as the existing use of precaria (grants of revocable tenure) by ecclesiastical landholders, Carolingian kings made increasing use of grants in beneice of both royal and ecclesiastical land.90 Such beneices were a relatively cheap way of supporting those providing military service, but some beneice-holders may have had more general royal services to carry out, such as escorting travellers.91 There is very little evidence of land grants by Merovingian laymen to anyone above peasant status;92 in contrast, we have occasional examples of Carolingian laymen granting beneices to their clients.93 Far more important, however, was the lay patron’s role in obtaining clerical and royal beneices for their clients. Einhard’s letters, in particular, show him actively using his court connections to obtain and secure beneices from kings, abbots and bishops for his followers and friends.94 Against this changing economic and social background, the acquisition of land often raised concerns, in contrast with the classical Roman idea that the buying-up of land was the only suitable use for surplus money.95 Late-eighth- and early-ninth-century capitularies make much of the oppression of the pauperes by the potentes. As scholars have shown, in this context the pauperes are freemen holding small allods, whom more powerful men are trying to subject to themselves.96 Such aggression by the powerful was already occurring in some areas by the early eighth century, but seems to have increased, at least in visibility, in the ninth.97 The subjection of such small landowners was seen as a problem for public order, because of the loss of royal service involved. Lothar I in 825 attempted to prevent men who were not motivated by poverty from avoiding army service by giving land to churches and receiving it back as a precarium.98 Rulers also worried that disinherited heirs might become beggars or malefactors.99 For landowners of slightly higher status, any loss 88 90 92 94 95

96 97 98 99

Innes, State, pp. 77–81. 89 Rösener, ‘Strukturformen’, pp. 175–9. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 89–105. 91 Ibid., p. 100; Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 261. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 83–4. 93 Innes, State, pp. 87–8. Innes, ‘Practices’, pp. 260–2. Gloria Vivenza, ‘Roman thought on economics and justice’, in Lowry and Gordon, Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas, pp. 269–331. Bosl, ‘Potens und pauper’. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, pp. 100–1; Wickham, ‘Rural society’, pp. 534–5. Capitulare Olonnense mundanum, MGH Cap. i:165, p. 330, c. 2. Capitulare missorum in Theodonis villa datum secundum, generale 806, MGH Cap. i:44, p. 125, c. 16; Capitula de causis cum epicopis et abbatibus tractandis 811, MGH Cap. i:72, p. 163, c. 5.

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Power and wealth of land may have reduced their social standing, removing them from the local elite.100 The emphasis in the sources is overwhelmingly on oppression by individual laymen, although the church may also have used coercion.101 Matthew Innes sees a ‘moral panic’ about encroachment on peasant landholding, which relected displaced concern about the changing patterns of local power and increased social diferentiation.102 The types of sources and the chronology of discussions of ‘oppression’ certainly suggest this. Most of the mirror writers, if they discuss the topic at all, do so in very general terms: Paulinus refers to avarice as leading to violence against one’s neighbour, and Jonas condemns those whose households oppress the poor.103 In contrast, capitularies and councils from 790 to 830 repeatedly stress the problem and give more details of practices aimed at forcing the ‘poor’ to sell up their land cheaply. Public power could be misused, such as counts summoning men too frequently to the army or placita.104 The Council of Paris in 829 reported that bishops, counts and other oicials were imposing excessively low price limits on the produce sold to them by the poor.105 The reference to such prices being imposed by ‘edict’ suggests that the oicials were trying to misapply the principles of just price imposed in times of famine.106 In 813 Charlemagne forbade counts and other oicials carrying out transactions secretly with pauperes, for fear they might exploit these opportunities.107 After about 830, however, texts become far less speciic. From the mid ninth century church councils excommunicated those who ‘oppressed paupers’, and threatened them with hell.108 Carloman in 884 could describe such men as murdering the poor.109 Only Hincmar, however, reveals that the issue is the same practice of subjecting former landowners as previously.110 Hincmar also gives the most vivid denunciation of land buying himself, in his mirror De cavendis: There are some rich men in the world, who could have enough from their own things, if they had wanted to impose a measure on desire.To these it is said: ‘Woe to you who join house to house and ield to ield as far as the end place, will you not live alone in the middle of the land?’ [Isaiah 5:8.] As if it should be said 100 102 103 104 105 107

108 109 110

Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 261. 101 Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, p. 109. Innes, State, pp. 47–8. On ‘moral panics’, see Chapter 1, p. 13. LE 30, col. 226; DIL 2:16, col. 199. Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Pauperes’, pp. 170–1. MGH Conc. 2:50, p. 645, c. 52. 106 See below, p. 230. Capitula e canonibus excerpta 813, MGH Cap. i:78, p. 174, c. 22, quoting the Council of Arles, c. 23, MGH Conc. 2:34, p. 253. See Chapter 5, p. 155. Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Pauperes’, pp. 185–6. Karolomanni capitulare Vernense 884, MGH Cap. ii:287, p. 372. Devisse, ‘Pauperes’, pp. 278–83.

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The morality of land openly, How far do you extend yourselves, who can hardly bear to have partners in the world you share? Indeed you oppress those you have already joined, but you always ind those against whom you might be able to extend yourself.111

Hincmar’s rhetoric shows that the pressures on small landholders had not gone away: what had largely disappeared were the acute moral concerns about such pressures. In 768, Charlemagne’s conirmation of his father’s capitulary for Aquitaine had stated that ‘More should not be taken from pauperes than they ought legitimately to render’;112 the likelihood is that by the mid ninth century, the new patterns of landholding had come to seem legitimate in their treatment of lesser men. Tenants and beneice-holders Both the buying-up of land and the move to manorialisation brought more tenants of varying social statuses (free and unfree) into existence. This created inherent complications, since customary law meant that lengthy possession of land, even without ownership, tended to bring claims upon it, such as the possibility of a tenure being heritable.113 As Matthew Innes puts it: ‘Although tenancies became more common in the Carolingian period, thanks to the letting out of church land, the moral tie between land and possessor always made them problematic. Very few tenancies were economic arrangements, with signiicant rents being collected, rather than social arrangements.’114 Increased controls by landowners over peasants, such as attempts to tie them to the land, are visible and could have royal support.The Edict of Pîtres in 864, for example, imposes strong measures on those who have led the land because of Viking raids.115 Whether such control should be seen as ‘landlordship’ (seigneurie, Grundherrschaft) in the period is more debatable: eighth- and ninth-century sources do not show landowners having juridical rights over free tenants or those outside their own holdings.116 Chris Wickham sees 800, not 1,000, as the ‘turning-point for the establishment of local

111

De cavendis i:2, p. 135: Et sunt mundi divites, qui suicienter de suis habere possent, si modum cupiditati imponere voluissent, quibus dicitur: ‘Vae qui coniungitis domum ad domum, et agrum agro copulatis usque ad terminum loci! Numquid habitabitis soli vos in medio terrae?’ Ac si aperte diceret: Quousque vos extenditis, qui non habere in communi mundo consortes minime potestis? Conjunctos quidem premitis, sed contra quos vos valeatis extendere, semper invenitis.

112 113 115 116

Pippini capitulare Aquitanicum 768, MGH Cap. i:18, p. 43, c. 4. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 79. 114 Innes, State, p. 73. MGH Cap. ii:273, pp. 323–4, c. 31. Innes, State, p. 49.

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Power and wealth aristocratic dominance’, but contrasts the informal local control then with the increasingly formal practices that developed subsequently.117 The economic obligations of tenants varied, with some, especially the free, having services and renders ixed either by custom or in writing. Others, however, even on the same estates, might be expected to do ‘as much as they were ordered’.118 Nor were customary duties necessarily ixed: Hans-Werner Goetz has shown the weaknesses in Hanna Vollrath’s argument that custom completely restrained landowners’ control.119 Several capitularies explicitly state that duties on royal estates can be increased or changed,120 and charters show tenants in several areas losing customary rights to monasteries.121 It is more doubtful whether lay landowners were able to increase rents, services or their rights over free tenants. Unlike the organised estates often seen in monastic polyptychs, lay landholding is marked by a greater fragmentation of property, as a result of both partible inheritance and social interactions. As a result, control over distant tenants was probably considerably weakened.122 In one of the few known dispute cases involving a lay landholder, when the count of Milan in 900 tried to claim that some men from the nearby village of Cusago were aldi (half-free men tied to his service), he lost the case.123 Explicit moral statements about the treatment of tenants are relatively rare. Dhuoda warns William about saying ‘the land [terra] is mine’, since it is ultimately God’s,124 but does not say what such human stewardship of land might mean in practice. Occasionally documents specifying customary services state that one aim is to protect subordinates from excessive demands. Charlemagne, for example, responded to complaints in 800 from men on royal and episcopal estates in Le Mans by establishing limits on labour services: ‘we state this so that neither may the labour force [familia] be able to remove themselves from the aforesaid works, nor may their lords demand more from them’.125 Yet in contrast to Gregory the Great, whose letters show him keen to correct abuses by his representatives on the papal estates in Sicily, Carolingian landowners seem more concerned about slack than over-zealous estate management.126 One 117 118 119

120 121 122 123 125 126

Wickham, ‘Feudal revolution’, pp. 198–204. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, p. 104. Hanna Vollrath, ‘Herrschaft und Genossenschaft im Kontext frühmittelalterlichen Rechtsbeziehungen’, Historisches Jahrbuch 102 (1982), 33–71; Hans-Werner Goetz,‘Herrschaft und Recht in der frühmittelalterlicher Grundherrschaft’, Historische Zeitschrift 1984 (1984), 392–410. See for example Capitulare de villis, MGH Cap. i:32, p. 83, c. 7. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, pp. 109–11; Innes, State, pp. 73–5. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, pp. 105–7; Innes, State, pp. 77–82. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, pp. 109–10. 124 LM 1:5, p. 66. Capitulum in pago Cenomannico datum, MGH Cap. i:31, p. 81. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, pp. 99–100.

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The morality of land reason was that their ability to provide appropriate hospitality to their peers and superiors relied crucially on their own resources.127 Einhard, for example, berated his deputy at Frizlar for his inadequate management of the property.128 The limits of concern about tenants are seen most clearly by a text preserved in Ansegis’ collection of capitularies and probably dating from around 813. This states: Since there are people of diverse conditions in the church, that is noble and ignoble, servi, coloni, tenants [inquilini] and other names of this kind, it is proper that whoever is placed over them, clerical or lay, acts towards them gently and treats them mercifully, whether in demanding work from them, whether in receiving tribute and certain dues, knowing them to be their brothers and having one father, God, with them …Therefore let most merciful discipline and suitable government be applied to them: discipline, lest they may ofend their creator by living in an indisciplined way; government, lest they become weak and destitute in the provisions of everyday life in the support of their superiors.129

‘Gentle demands’ and ‘suitable government’ were the most that peasants on others’ lands might hope for: the equality of humankind meant only that they should not be reduced to starvation by those who justiiably appropriated their money and labour. In contrast to this relative lack of interest in the humblest tenancies, we have more evidence on moral norms about beneices granted to men of higher status. Most of this concerns royal and ecclesiastical beneices (and thus laymen as beneice-holders); in contrast, beneices granted by laymen are relatively rare.130 As with tenancies, possession of land seems to have brought moral claims on it. It was often a struggle, for example, to keep ecclesiastical land granted out by the ruler in beneice as church property.131 127

128 129

Matthew Innes, ‘Framing the Carolingian economy’, Journal of Agrarian Change 9 (2009), 42–58, at pp. 50–1. Einhard, Epistola 9, p. 113. Capitula e conciliis excerpta, MGH Cap. i:154, p. 313, c. 9:

Quia ergo constat in aecclesia diversarum conditionum homines esse, ut sint nobiles et ignobiles, servi, coloni, inquilini et cetera huiuscemodi nomina, oportet ut quicumque eis praelati sunt clerici sive laici, clementer erga eos agant et misericorditer eos tractent, sive in exigendis ab eis operibus, sive in accipiendis tributis et quibusdam debitis; sciantque eos fratres suos esse, et unum patrem secum habere Deum … Disciplina igitur eis misericordissima et gubernatio oportuna adhibenda est: disciplina, ne indisciplinate vivendo auctorem suum ofendant; gubernatio, ne in cotidianis vitae commeatibus praelatorum adminiculo destituti fatescant. On this text, preserved in Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, ms Lat. 29555/2, see Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium, pp. 376–7. 130

See above, p. 223.

131

Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 89–91.

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Power and wealth Charlemagne in the Capitulary of Nijmegen from 806 complains about attempts by counts and other homines to convert royal beneices to allods.132 Yet there was also an additional discourse in claims to beneices, not visible with more lowly tenants: that of the moral worth, high social status and long service of the would-be recipient. Einhard’s letters requesting beneices for his clients are full of such language, and also stress the economic need of such men.133 One addressed to Louis the German, for example, is on behalf of a ‘noble man and of good faith’ who had ‘faithfully served’ Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, but was now ‘very ill’.134 Others include details of the petitioner’s relations: Einhard clearly saw the statement that someone was the son or brother-in-law of a particular count as in itself relevant to that man’s claim on land.135 Einhard trod a careful path in such letters between showing the need of his clients and revealing their weakness: the noblemen concerned, he pointed out, were well trained for royal service of any kind. Here conlicting norms came into play. On the one hand, free men normally seem to have had some moral right to hold onto beneices, unless there was ‘good cause’ to remove them.136 Louis II announced in 865: ‘nor do we want any of our ideles to be deprived of a beneice without legal sanction’, and Hincmar of Laon’s conduct in removing beneices from some of his men aroused much hostility.137 In the Mainz version of the Fulda Annals, Charles the Fat is condemned not only for dismissing Guy as margrave of Spoleto, but also because ‘he gave the beneices which they and their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers had held to persons of much lower standing [multo viliores]’.138 On the other hand, both rulers and bishops sometimes stated that beneices might be coniscated for neglect of duties.139 This became a particular worry when a new ruler took over a region. Several of Einhard’s letters are therefore ‘holding operations’, asking that men who are temporarily unable to appear at court may nevertheless keep their beneices until they are able to show themselves as suitable for service.140 Royal beneice-holders also had speciic responsibilities concerning the lands they held. A number of capitularies state that they were not to neglect

132 134 136 137

138 140

MGH Cap. i:46, p. 131, cc. 6–7. 133 Innes, ‘Practices’, pp. 260–2. Einhard, Epistola 34, pp. 126–7. 135 Ibid. 27, 28, pp. 123–4. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 103. Capitula Papiae optimatibus ab imperatore pronuntiata, MGH Cap. ii:216, p. 92, c. 4; Peter R. McKeon, Hincmar of Laon and Carolingian Politics (Urbana, 1978), pp. 22–6. AF(M) 883, p. 100. 139 Ganshof, Feudalism, p. 43. See for example Einhard, Epistolae 25, 27–8, pp. 122–4.

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Moral ways to wealth? these lands, exploit them for the beneit of their own property or let the familia starve in times of famine.141 The norms visible in these Carolingian texts should not be thought of as ‘feudal’: there is little good evidence to support the idea of the ‘union of beneice and vassus’ (implying that only vassi could hold beneices), the belief that one was normally allowed to hold only one beneice, or that a beneice necessarily ceased on the death of the grantor.142 What is visible instead is a looser and less explicit set of expectations and customary actions. Such norms could neverthess be extremely potent: according to Regino, Archbishop Fulk of Rheims’ murder in 900 was due to a dispute over a beneice.143 In contrast to the treatment of peasant tenants, the relationship between a beneice-holder and the owner of the land shows far greater expectations of moral reciprocity. Moral ways to wealth? The exploitation of landed resources in an upright manner was thus not a straightforward matter: acquiring land, relations with dependent peasantry and holding beneices all had moral constraints placed on them. Yet even when agriculture did not involve the buying-up of land, there were other potential moral dangers. The Bible and patristic authors had both condemned usury.144 Although the language used by Carolingian moralists is not as strong as that of writers such as Gregory of Nyssa and Ambrose, some also spoke against it. Dhuoda and Paulinus both quote Psalm 14:5, saying that those who gave their money to usury would not reach heaven.145 In contrast, the mirrors of Alcuin and Jonas do not mention usury: Jonas’ silence is surprising, since the Council of Paris in 829, with which he was centrally involved, had much to say on the topic. ‘Usury’ in crops was a particular worry: Charles the Bald complained that ‘almost all’ of the clerics of Laon were carrying out this practice,146 and Charlemagne in the Capitulary of Nijmegen in 806 had already included in his deinition of usury requiring back more wheat than one had given someone.147 The Council of Paris in 829 gives the most detailed description of such practices. A poor man in time of famine goes to a usurer and asks for food: the usurer is only prepared to sell him food with money he advances, to be paid back in money or kind at harvest 141

142 144 146 147

François-Louis Ganshof, ‘Beneice and vassalage in the age of Charlemagne’, Cambridge Historical Journal 6 (1939), 147–75, at p. 161. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 99–105. 143 Regino 903, pp. 149–50. Maloney, ‘Teachings’. 145 LM 6:3, p. 184; LE 53, col. 260. Schmitz, ‘Wucher in Laon’, p. 556. Capitulare missorum Niumagae datum 806, MGH Cap. i:46, p. 132, c. 11.

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Power and wealth time (when the price would have dropped). As a result, the recipient has to pay back three or four times as much.148 As Harald Siems points out, such a transaction was not actually usurious in the sense of taking interest: usura seems here to be used in a wider sense.149 There was a long tradition of church canons opposing usury, but Carolingian rulers were the irst to introduce secular legislation.150 Capitularies and councils from the early Carolingian period onwards banned both clerics and laity from usury. Scholars have sometimes doubted whether such provisions were enforced, since many of the prohibitions do not include speciic penalties. However, some legislation does include penalties, such as the loss of oice for clerics, and excommunication for the laity.151 Usury was seen as endangering the poor: the Council of Paris in 829 claimed that many of them died as a result of famine. The bishops also highlighted the loss of allodial land: ‘many others, forced by this oppression, abandoning their own properties, sought the lands of others, for the sake of a dwelling [incolatus]’.152 The council added that usury provoked the wrath of God, and that usury did not only apply to money: quoting Jerome, it stated that anything extra received back on a loan, including crops and ‘little presents’ (munuscula) was usurious. One must only receive back what is given, no more.153 Unlike classical Greek and eastern patristic thought, however, Carolingian moralists did not use arguments about the sterility of money, which could not therefore ‘breed’.154 Times of famine, a frequent context for usury, raised other concerns about the behaviour of the rich, and several capitularies contain measures speciically to deal with these. Charlemagne’s Notitia italica from 776 allowed land sales made in the famine after the Carolingian take-over of Lombard Italy to be annulled if the seller could prove he had sold below the ‘just price’ because of need.155 The Synod of Frankfurt in 794 and the Capitulary of Nijmegen from 806 both ixed maximum prices for the sale of cereals.156 The Synod of Frankfurt went further and wanted prices ixed permanently, even in times of surplus. In the famine of 805–6 there were also prohibitions on selling grain overseas or speculation in it.157 148 150 151 152 153

154 155 156

MGH Conc. 2:50, pp. 645–6, c. 53. 149 Siems, Handel, pp. 803–4. Ibid., pp. 664–6, 727–8. Schmitz, ‘Wucher in Laon’, pp. 546–7, 555; Siems, Handel, pp. 752–4, 788–97. MGH Conc. 2:50, p. 645, c. 53. Ibid., p. 647, c. 53, quoting Jerome, Commentarium in Hiezechielem 6.18.9; see Jerome, Commentariorum in Hiezechielem libri xIV, ed. Franciscus Glorie, CCSL 75 (Turnhout, 1964), p. 240. Cf. Capitulare missorum Niumagae datum 806, MGH Cap. i:46, p. 132, c. 11. See Maloney, ‘Teachings’, pp. 249–56. Siems, Handel, pp. 758–62; on this capitulary, see McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 111–13. Siems, Handel, pp. 749–52. 157 Ibid., pp. 738–42.

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Moral ways to wealth? Even outside times of famine, commerce was treated cautiously by capitularies and councils. The Council of Mainz in 813 was willing to accept that business in itself was acceptable, since the apostles had been involved in it,158 but Richard Newhauser’s claim that in the Carolingian period ‘for the laity the proit motive itself was on the way to acceptance’ seems overstated.159 There were few positive views of commerce,160 while an underlying suspicion is shown, for example, in demands that negotia had to be carried on in public before witnesses, to avoid doubtful sales.161 Repeated condemnations were made of the use of unequal weights and measures to cheat in transactions.162 Terms such as ‘usury’ and ‘dishonest gain’ (turpe lucrum) were sometimes used broadly to condemn a variety of economic transactions. While capitularies and councils made periodic attempts to distinguish between ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ practices, their analysis was limited.163 Some mirror writers show the same unease about the acquisition of wealth. Jonas quotes Old Testament demands for fair weights and measures.164 Paulinus gives a irm, though frustratingly vague, condemnation of unsuitable practices: Let us scorn to make unjust alms, we who want to make spiritual and just alms, so that we may do them from just labours, not from theft, or from the multiplication of crops [usury in produce?] or from improper businesses, lest perhaps in this many sacrileges are incurred, or even blood may be shed for the sake of cupidity or drunkenness, which is worse, and voices may call out to God against us, alicted with much labour.165

Similarly, Alcuin warns against the ‘unjust acquisition of money’, but again gives only vague descriptions of people lying, giving false testimony and stealing to obtain it.166 Other ways of gaining wealth appear in moral texts only to be condemned. There were persistent church complaints about alienation of tithes by laymen and the secularisation of church property.167 Jonas denounced those who demanded money for allowing burials on their 158 159 160 163 165

166 167

MGH Conc. 2:36, p. 264, c. 14. Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 19–20. Cf. Newhauser, Early History of Greed, pp. 120–1. Siems, Handel, p. 840. 161 Ibid., pp. 488–91. 162 Ibid., pp. 481–4. Ibid., pp. 839–42. 164 DIL 2:24, col. 219. Cf. Paraenesis, 295, p. 501. LE 53, col. 260: ‘Contemnamus facere injustas eleemosynas, qui volumus facere justas et spiritales eleemosynas, ut de justis laboribus faciamus, non de rapinis, sive de multiplicatione frugum, aut de ineptis negotiis, ne forte in hoc multa sacrilegia incurrantur, vel etiam, quod pejus est, pro cupiditate vel ebrietate sanguis fundatur, clamentque eorum voces ad Deum contra nos, multo labore alicti.’ DVV 19, col. 628. See for example DIL 2:19, cols. 204–8; Council of Pavia 845–50, MGH Conc. 3:21, p. 213, c. 10; Synodal letter from Council of Tusey 860, MGH Conc. 4:3b, pp. 22–34.

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Power and wealth land;168 councils insisted that laymen should not exact payments from priests in exchange for having churches commended to them.169 Arguably, the only method for the elite to gain wealth that Carolingian moralists mentioned positively is plundering enemies.170 Such approval of plunder, in contrast to reticence about other morally acceptable ways of gaining money, may relect lay nobles’ priorities and values. It also suggests, however, an underlying view that wealth could only be gained at another’s expense. At least with plundering, only the Franks’ enemies sufered, rather than their own society. T he use of wealth Like nobles’ acquisition of wealth, their use of it was not determined solely by economic considerations, but also by social relationships. Indeed, the Carolingian economy was probably shaped by such social patterns of exchange more than purely commercial exchanges.171 In particular, it is only against the background of the important role played by gift-exchange in maintaining social relationships that the signiicance of much moral discussion about the correct uses of wealth is seen. Studies of early medieval gift-giving have drawn heavily on anthropological concepts to illuminate a whole social economy of gift-exchange.172 Our sources, however, give us a distorted view of such transactions. The overwhelming majority of gifts mentioned are those given and received by rulers or by ecclesiastical foundations. Land transactions are also overrepresented, and in some ways atypical, because their immovability and their importance for noble identity made the connections remaining to the giver particularly strong.173 In contrast, gifts of movables were probably often given by lords to their men, but are rarely visible in the sources.174 Theodulf ’s detailed descriptions of the gifts he was given when acting as a missus are a rare exception to our lack of information on such smaller gifts.175 168 169

170 171

172

173 174

DIL 3:15, col. 263. See for example Concilium Arelatense 813, MGH Conc. 2:34, p. 251, c. 5; Mainz 852, MGH Conc. 3:26, p. 251, c. 19. See Chapter 3, pp. 103–5. See Philip Grierson, ‘Commerce in the Dark Ages: A Critique of the Evidence’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 9 (1959), pp. 123–40; Innes, ‘Framing’, p. 47. For overviews see Jürgen Hannig, ‘Ars donandi: Zur Ökonomie des Schenkens im früheren Mittelalter’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 37 (1986), 149–62; Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, ‘The medieval gift as agent of social bonding and political power: A comparative approach’, in Cohen and de Jong, Medieval Transformations, pp. 123–56. Innes, ‘Framing’, p. 53; Bijsterveld, ‘Medieval gift’, p. 126. Innes, State, pp. 90–1. 175 See Chapter 5, p. 165.

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The use of wealth Theodulf ’s evidence shows the most fraught area of gift-giving: the possibilities of corruption ofered to those holding ‘oicial’ positions. Moralists were concerned to police the boundaries between acceptable customary gifts and bribes, but such distinctions may have been diicult to draw in practice.176 Sales, too, might provide opportunities to inluence oicials, as seen in the numerous purchases of land around Rankweil in Rhaetia by the minor oicial Folcuin.177 Unlike the ethical conlicts over gift-giving to oicials, other forms of gift-exchange were normally less contentious. The basic social norms implicit in all transactions were those of reciprocity, but also the superior status of the donor.178 Gifts seem to have been speciically designed to emphasise hierarchies.179 Because of such factors, however, gift-exchange could arouse aggressive rivalry and oppression, rather than purely beneicial emotions.180 Occasionally, we get vivid glimpses of how the norms of gift-giving might be airmed or subverted, such as the complaint by a group of Istrians in 804 that the Frankish dux John had given their horses to Charlemagne as his gift.181 More commonly, however, lack of evidence makes the details of Carolingian norms on gift-giving diicult to examine.There is not much emphasis in Carolingian texts on the ‘generous ring-giver’, the lord giving gifts to his followers. This does not mean the absence of the practice: Dhuoda’s hopes that Charles the Bald would reward William are clear, and other examples of such interactions are also visible.182 It is more likely to relect the general tendency of the Carolingian sources to downplay the lord–follower relationship.183 Indeed, the most prominent example in Carolingian secular poetry is Gunther in Waltharius, who, in typically inadequate fashion, promises his warriors a share in treasure he cannot actually obtain.184 Moralists’ main worries about such lordly expenditure was not the expense, but rather that gifts to support warrior bands might not be suicient to prevent them marauding.185 Yet while spending on military followings was clearly acceptable, there are isolated complaints about noblemen rewarding other kinds of professional. Jonas, following Augustine, condemns giving money to hunters, actors, augurs and

176 178 179 181

182 184

Innes, ‘Framing’, p. 53. 177 Ibid., p. 52; Bullimore, ‘Folcwin’, pp. 49–57. Timothy Reuter, ‘Gifts and simony’, in Cohen and de Jong, Medieval Transformations, pp. 157–68. See below, p. 237. 180 See for example Hannig, ‘Ars donandi’, pp. 154–60. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Charlemagne and empire’, in Davis and McCormick, Long Morning, pp. 223–34, at pp. 228–9. LM 3:4, p. 94; Reuter, ‘Plunder’, pp. 80–4. 183 See Chapter 6, p. 198. Waltharius, 601–37. 185 Reuter, ‘Plunder’, p. 83.

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Power and wealth prostitutes;186 Hincmar also complained about supporting actors while the poor starved.187 Gifts and sales of land show us the moral norms of the gift-economy in its most acute form, although such norms are rarely explicitly stated.188 At the highest level, grants of land were an important form of royal patronage, aiding favoured nobles to exercise local power.189 It was rare for kings to give land outright to individuals before the 830s, but even then they seem to have kept a moral hold on such gifts of allods.190 Rulers could also coniscate all forms of land, although it was expected that such power should be used with care.191 Notker praises Charlemagne as a ‘just ruler’ for restoring coniscated lands to Udalrich, while one of Charles the Bald’s charters describes his ‘mercy’ in returning land coniscated because of the ‘negligence’ of Eberhard of Friuli.192 Even without the complications of royal action, transactions in land were morally charged. While the alienation of land was acceptable, there was a strong sense that the gift or sale of a parcel of land, whether outright or not, left the donor or vendor with some continuing link to it and the receiver with some obligations. Thus the giving of precaria by an abbot to a nobleman who did not have previous connections to a monastery could be seen as a socially transgressive act.193 Such continuing relationships, however, were not always ixed or unproblematic. Studies of disputes about church property show frequent instances of relationships being renegotiated between ecclesiastical institutions and the families and descendants of donors. Sometimes such changes seem to have been substantial: there are periodic attempts visible by churches and monasteries to exert more control over donated land, to the exclusion of the ‘rights’ of donor families.194 Although such behaviour is seen by clerical scribes as simply ensuring church rights, it may well have seemed morally transgressive to the landholding nobility involved. It was not only churches, however, who beneited from exchanges with noblemen. Some laymen exploited new norms to protect their 186

187 188 189 191 192 193

194

DIL 2:23, col. 217, quoting Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in Psalmos 102, c. 13; see Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. Eligius Dekkers and Jean Fraipont, 3 vols., CCSL 38–40 (Turnhout, 1956),Vol. iii, pp. 1463–4. De cavendis 1: 2, p. 134. For more details see for example Brown, ‘Use of norms’. Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 261. 190 Innes, State, p. 204. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 80, 106. Nelson, Charles the Bald, p. 69; Recueil des actes de Charles II, 323 bis,Vol. ii, p. 213, from 864 × 869. Ian Wood, ‘Teutsind, Witlaic and the history of Merovingian precaria’, in Davies and Fouracre, Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 31–52, at pp. 47–9. Brown, Unjust Seizure, pp. 50, 75–85.

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The use of wealth landholdings, such as by donating land to churches, which they then received back in beneice.195 One clause from the Council of Rheims of 813 even suggests the possibility of the ‘laundering’ of land, condemning men who take the lands of others, donate them to churches and receive precaria in exchange.196 Spending and giving The ways in which Carolingian lay nobles spent their wealth and gave alms were deeply embedded in this gift-giving economy. Appropriate hospitality towards superiors was a way of winning their favour and hence gaining additional resources.197 The dispersal of ‘treasure’ played a key role in demonstrations of political power.198 What was given or shared in such encounters was not ordinary food or commodities (standardised objects), but luxuries and items with identities and symbolic meanings.199 A patristic theology of the redemptive value of alms-giving also became absorbed into this early medieval tradition. As a result, the giving of alms was often conceptualised as exchanging earthly goods for the prayers of the church and of the poor, and thus metaphorically for ‘treasure in heaven’.200 In turn, donations to the church might be rewarded with counter-gifts recognising the status of the giver, such as horses and clothing.201 It is this interconnection of gift, counter-gift and lavish consumption that probably explains one of the more noteworthy Carolingian silences on the morality of wealth. Some of the Greek and Latin Fathers had claimed that the rich should satisfy only their basic needs, and then give the entire surplus to the poor, but few Carolingian moralists followed their lead.202 Jonas cited a sermon attributed to Augustine (actually by Caesarius of Arles) saying that apart from spending on ‘moderate nourishment and reasonable clothing’, all ‘left-over’ money should be given to the poor.203 Generally, however, there was little stress on any link between lay consumption and the problems of the poor. There is no

195 197 198

199 201 202

203

Ibid., pp. 89–92. 196 Concilium Remense 813, MGH Conc. 2:35, pp. 256–7, c. 36. Innes, ‘Framing’, pp. 50–1. Timothy Reuter, ‘“You can’t take it with you”: Testaments, hoards and moveable wealth in Europe, 600–1100’, in Elizabeth M. Tyler (ed.), Treasure in the Medieval West (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 11–24, at pp. 14–16. Innes, ‘Framing’, pp. 47–8. 200 Bijsterveld, ‘Medieval gift’, pp. 128–9. Innes, ‘Framing’, p. 51. Mollat, Poor, p. 39; Anastassios D. Karayiannis and Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd,‘The Greek Christian Fathers’, in Lowry and Gordon, Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas, pp. 163–208, at pp. 191–4. DIL 2:19, col. 208, quoting ‘Augustine’ (actually Caesarius of Arles, Sermo 33:3,Vol. i, p. 146).

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Power and wealth secular parallel to Notker’s story about Charlemagne rebuking a bishop tricked into wasting his money on a stufed mouse.204 Timothy Reuter argued that aristocratic dominance by means of social and cultural markers increased over time in the Middle Ages, but there are indications that the material culture of Carolingian lay nobles was already distinctively superior.205 In a scene in Waltharius a ferryman tells the Frankish court about a mysterious stranger he has met. His description stresses the material goods he had: bronze body-armour, a horse and two chests whose sound indicated they held gold and gems. Hagan’s response is immediate: this must be Walter.206 There is little emphasis on the key means of identiication common in later romances, where heroes are recognised by their bearing, ighting skills or courteous behaviour: Walter is briely described as a ‘strong man’, but otherwise his own person is unmarked.207 In contrast, Hildegund’s beauty is mentioned, implicitly placing her among Walter’s possessions.208 Walter himself later recognises Hagan by his helmet.209 The objects mentioned by the Waltharius poet often appear elsewhere as social markers. Rich clothing was important: the will of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela shows them distributing gold-decorated tunics, belts and swords to their sons.210 The symbolic, as well as practical, importance of ‘horses and arms’ for elite warriors is clear.211 Archaeological studies, meanwhile, have identiied Carolingian-era sites that appear to be the dwelling places for lay elites, showing expensive construction combined with the presence of portable luxuries, such as glass drinking vessels.212 Food was also a key indication of status. Notker has an anecdote about Charlemagne’s gracious condescension to a bishop who could only ofer him cheese, although very good cheese, on a fast day, rather than ish.213 There also seems to have been a hierarchy of types of meat, above that of having meat to eat at all. Reuter suggests plausibly that part of Charlemagne’s concern at his doctors ordering him to give up eating roast meat is the status marker this provided.214 Studies of the refuse 204 205

206 208

209 211 212

213

Notker 1:16, pp. 19–21. Timothy Reuter, ‘Nobles and others: The social and cultural expression of power relations in the Middle Ages’, in Duggan, Nobles, pp. 85–98, at pp. 97–8. Waltharius, 450–67. 207 Ibid., 454. Ibid., 456–7. On beautiful and richly dressed women as status symbols for Carolingian noblemen, see Garver, Women, pp. 23–5. Waltharius, 556–8. 210 La Rocca and Provero, ‘The dead’, pp. 251–3. See Chapter 3, p. 70. Christopher Loveluck, ‘The dynamics of elite lifestyles in the “rural world”, ad 600–1150: Archaeological perspectives from Northwest Europe’, in Bougard, Le Jan and McKitterick, Culture, pp. 139–70, at pp. 147–55. Notker 1:15, pp. 18–19. 214 Reuter, ‘Nobles and others’, p. 90.

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The use of wealth deposits of secular elite centres show evidence of high-status eating, with livestock killed at its optimum age for eating, and considerable consumption of wild game.215 Such use of status goods inevitably aroused the comments of Carolingian moralists, even if they did not blame conspicuous consumption for the suferings of the poor. Eric Goldberg, focusing on royal costume, argues for a basic dichotomy in attitudes to clothing between the eastern and western kingdoms in the later ninth century. Louis the German’s emphasis on plain and simple clothing showed his martial manliness, while Charles the Bald’s court culture emphasised pomp and wealth to make up for his lack of military success.216 Goldberg’s view is based largely on his reading of Notker, a man fascinated by costume, whose most vivid descriptions of Charlemagne, for example, focus not on his body, but his clothes. Yet Notker’s concerns seem less about ine clothes themselves than their inappropriate use. He shows Louis the German ordering his men not to wear silk, gold or silver while on campaign, lest they are plundered; similarly Notker’s Charlemagne mocks nobles who wear ine silks while out hunting.217 On other occasions, however, Notker is happy to show Franks in ine clothing. He tells how a Byzantine envoy is dazzled by a succession of court oicials, till he inally meets the king, ‘radiant as the sun, striking in gold and precious stones’.218 Notker also shows Louis the Pious giving presents of clothing to his courtiers in a clear order of rank; the nobiliores get given ‘very precious clothing from the widest empire’, while the lesser get linen or wool.219 The same hierarchy of gifts of clothing to courtiers is seen in Ermoldus Nigellus; other poets are also happy to refer to the rich clothes worn by both royal and noble men.220 Sumptuary laws are not known from the Carolingian period. The suggestion by Harald Siems that a capitulary clause from 808 regulating the price of cloaks and furs was a measure against excessive luxury seems unlikely; it seems to it better with a more general concern for royal control of commercial activity, also seen in the same text’s demand that money should only be minted at court.221 In contrast to the later appearance of such laws, their absence implies both the moral acceptability of luxurious lay clothing, and a lack of concern about non-elite groups ‘misusing’ such status symbols.222 Most of the lay mirrors make 215 217 220 221

222

Loveluck, ‘Dynamics’, pp. 150–2. 216 Goldberg, ‘More devoted’, pp. 51–5, 73–8. Notker 2:17, pp. 86–8. 218 Ibid. 2:6, p. 56. 219 Ibid. 2:21, p. 92. In honorem, 1108–11; Hibernicus Exul, Hos Karoli 7, p. 174. Siems, Handel, pp. 752–3 citing Capitula cum primis constituta, MGH Cap. i:52, p. 140, c. 5. Minting restrictions are discussed in c. 7. Compare Brundage, ‘Sumptuary laws’, pp. 351–3.

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Power and wealth few mentions of clothing, positively or negatively: Alcuin wrote letters condemning extravagent costume for male and female religious, but says nothing about lay clothing.223 Jonas several times uses ‘purple’ dress to indicate the rich, but this is a sign of status, not necessarily sin; even angels might wear purple.224 Two Carolingian authors, however, do seem to disapprove of luxurious clothing per se. Paulinus sees a love of ‘precious clothes’ as one of the many signs of worldliness,225 and warns Eric about the evil man ‘who seems distinguished [clarus] and noble in dress [habitus]’.226Abbo, a century later, cites extravagant costume as one of the reasons for the Franks’ lack of success against the Vikings (along with arrogance and ‘the foul charms of Venus’). He berates the personiied Francia for her gold brooch (ibula), purple-dyed garments, golden cloak (clamis) and sandals, and jewelled girdle.227 Abbo’s outburst, however, is unconnected to the rest of the poem, so it is peculiarly diicult to be sure exactly who his culprits are, or why this results in military failure. Nor are the gender implications of his complaints clear. Does his use of a female igure here imply that luxurious dress is feminising? Unlike in both classical and later medieval culture, there is no explicit reference in Carolingian moral sources to elaborate lay male costume as being efeminate.228 Abbo’s outburst, whatever its implications, remains atypical. Mostly the moral focus was on appropriate clothing for particular social statuses and events. Asceticism in dress was only for the exceptional: Katrien Heene discusses how both male and female saints are shown as rejecting ine clothing, while it remained acceptable for laywomen to wear such costume.229 The diet of nobles also shows limited expectations about asceticism. Carolingian moralists, of course, disapproved of drunkenness and gluttony among laymen as well as clerics, although with varying degrees of concern. Paulinus has a long condemnation of excessive drinking.230 Einhard’s claim that Charlemagne was particularly opposed to drunkenness is conirmed by his capitularies.231 Carolingian texts do not, however, show the gendered approach to drunkenness visible in Caesarius of 223 224 225 228

229 231

Garver, Women, pp. 33–5. See Chapter 4, p. 126; Visio Wettini, 297, p. 313 has a purple-clad angel. LE 30, 53, cols. 116, 258. 226 Ibid. 44, col. 247. 227 Abbo ii:600–11. See for example Barton,‘All things’, pp. 83–8; H. Platelle,‘Le Problème du scandale: Les Nouvelles Modes masculines aux xie et xiie siècles’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 53 (1975), 1071–96; Matthew Bennett, ‘Military masculinity in England and northern France c. 1050–c. 1225’, in Hadley, Masculinity, pp. 71–88, at pp. 79–81. Heene, Legacy, pp. 231–3. 230 LE 37, cols. 236–9. VK 24, p. 29; Capitulare missorum Aquisgranense primum, MGH Cap. i:64, p. 153, c. 7.

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The use of wealth Arles’ sermons, in which Caesarius, in response to a community in Arles that apparently saw excessive drinking as manly, countered with a classical vision of true masculinity as involving self-control, and drunkenness as efeminate weakness.232 Unlike Caesarius, Carolingian authors accepted banquets and the drinking associated with them as part of court culture. Ermoldus Nigellus sneers at the Breton king’s drunkenness, but is happy to show Louis the Pious and his court drinking together with the Danish prince Herold, where ‘good Bacchus then delights strong hearts’.233 The author of Waltharius includes scenes both of drunkeness at Attila’s court, and of the orderly way in which Hildegund serves drink at Walter’s command.234 Carolingian sources do not show feasts at Frankish courts as leading to drunken violence, although this is a motif in some Anglo-Saxon texts.235 Generally, it was accepted that nobles should eat better food than others: Ermoldus stresses the variety of food provided for court banquets,236 while Alcuin saw it as one form of gluttony when a man ‘orders more expensive foods prepared for himself than the needs of his body or the quality of his person [qualitas personae] demand’.237 Similarly, a capitulary from 819 discussed how the missi should be provisioned, ‘according to their quality’, with the more important given extra rations of food.238 Jonas thought part of abstinence was not desiring ‘delicacies’, but he saw desire as key: desire of ordinary food is harmful; eating delicacies without desire is not.239 While moralists did not object to luxurious consumption by elites, they made it clear that not all their wealth should be used in such ways. The ruler and the church had a particular responsibility for caring for those in need.240 Lay people were expected to pay the tithes that supported church charity, but did not have the same direct responsibility for the poor. Capitularies and councils that demand speciic alms-giving or support for the poor by the lay elite do so largely in times of crisis, and their responsibility is focused on those poor close to them.241 For example, the Council of Tours in 813 stated that ‘every individual should 232

233 234 235

236 238 240 241

Lisa Bailey, ‘“These are not men”: Sex and drink in the sermons of Caesarius of Arles’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 15 (2007), 23–43. In honorem, 1460–2, 1632–45, 2434. Waltharius, 222–8, 290–323, 1410–20. Nelson, ‘Charlemagne’s court’, pp. 44–5; Donald A. Bullough, Friends, Neighbours and FellowDrinkers: Aspects of Community and Conlict in the Early Medieval West, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 1 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 11–16. In honorem, 2339–40. 237 DVV 28, p. 30. Capitulare missorum 819, MGH Cap. i:141, p. 291, c. 29. 239 DIL 1:10, col. 141. Le Jan-Hennebicque, ‘Pauperes’, pp. 174–7; Oexle, ‘Potens’, pp. 143–4. Verhulst, ‘Karolingische Agrarpolitik’, pp. 185–7.

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Power and wealth at all times take care to nourish and invigorate their familia and those poor belonging to them [ad se pertinentes inopes]’.242 Nevertheless, alms-giving by lay people was morally important. Pseudo-Cyprian’s fourth abuse was the ‘rich man without alms,243 and John Contreni has discussed how messages about alms-giving were transmitted to ninth-century laymen by texts such as the late Merovingian Visio Baronti.244 Alms-giving was seen both as a cure for avarice and also a means of getting to heaven.245 Alcuin is explicit, citing Ecclesiasticus 3:33: ‘Your substance, when expended well, is augmented … Just as water extinguishes ire, so alms extinguish sin.’246 Dhuoda, similarly, thought that those who have received many things ‘because of their great merit’ should help the ‘very little’, and tells William: ‘Give, so that you may receive.’247 The other mirror writers, although agreeing on the need for almsgiving, were more cautious about the forms this might take. Hincmar, following Gregory the Great, complains about rich men who consider how much they give, but not how much they have stolen.248 Both Paulinus and Jonas quote Ecclesiasticus 34:24: ‘He who ofers a sacriice from the substance of the pauper, is like him who sacriices a son in the sight of his father.’249 Jonas also stressed that someone could not simply give alms while continuing to sin, ‘as if he should be able to hire God for mercy’ and that pride about charity is sinful.250 The same caution is occasionally seen in conciliar material: concerns about ‘hiring God’ had already been expressed by the Council of Chalon in 813.251 Arn of Salzburg banned priests from receiving alms from those who committed mortal sins, while the Council of Tusey in 860 similarly warned priests not to receive alms from those who refused to do penance.252 In contrast to some eastern theologians,253 Carolingian moralists rarely gave speciic advice as to how much money should be given, how often and to whom. An exception is provided by several early-ninth-century Bavarian councils, which want everyone to give alms four times a year.254 242 243 244

245 247 248 249 251 252

253 254

Concilium Turonense 813, MGH Conc. 2:38, p. 291, c. 36. Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 38. John J. Contreni, ‘“Building mansions in heaven”: The Visio Baronti, Archangel Raphael, and a Carolingian king’, Speculum 78 (2003), 673–706. Newhauser, ‘Modus’, pp. 16–17. 246 DVV 17, col. 626. LM 4:9, 4:8, pp. 162, 160. De cavendis i:2, p. 134, following Regula pastoralis iii:21,Vol. ii, p. 400. DIL 2:17, col. 201; LE 53, col. 259. 250 DIL 3:10, col. 253. Concilium Cabillionense 813, MGH Conc. 2:37, pp. 280–1, c. 36. Arnonis instructio pastoralis, MGH Conc. 2:22c, p. 201, c. 17; Council of Tusey 860, MGH Conc. 4:3f, pp. 40–1. Newhauser, Early History of Greed, pp. 27–8, 33. McCune, ‘Four Pseudo-Augustinian sermons’, pp. 421–2.

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The use of wealth The Councils of Reisbach, Freising and Salzburg from 800 demand this, for example, but add that this should not be done by people ‘unwillingly or forced … but by willing judgement’.255 This emphasis on the voluntary nature of alms-giving might explain why other authors leave the question open, although Dhuoda does want William to give ‘frequently’, and Jonas, quoting Jerome, demands that sons support their parents.256 The mirror writers, however, also provided alternatives for those nobles who wished to hold on to their money. Jonas, Dhuoda and Alcuin all cited Augustine’s saying that alms-giving did not necessarily involve giving gifts; it could also include giving good advice, forgiving those who have ofended you and even correcting the faults of others, using whips if necessary!257 Clearly, therefore, alms-giving by laymen was not expected to involve excessive sacriices. It was only those embracing religious lives who were expected to give up all their wealth. The possibility of asceticism while remaining in secular life was nearly unthinkable: Benedict of Aniane contemplated becoming a shepherd or a shoemaker, before deciding to become a monk.258 Both Jonas and Dhuoda referred to the apostolic ideal of common property, in which no-one was in need, as potentially applicable to the secular world as well as monasticism.259 However, their quotations from Acts omit a key detail: that this was funded by those who owned property selling it.260 Similar limitations are also implicitly visible in the moral norms surrounding lay hospitality. This was one of the few forms of ‘charitable’ giving speciically demanded of everyone by capitularies. However, its extent was carefully restricted. The Capitulare missorum generale 802, for example, wanted the ‘rich, poor and pilgrims’ to be given ‘shelter, ire and water’; giving anything else was optional, although applauded.261 Other capitularies show similar restrictions on what those travelling might take or demand.262 In contrast, ecclesiastics saw hospitality as their particular duty. The Council of Rheims in 813 told bishops to let the poor eat with them;263 no such demand was ever made of counts. The letter of the Frankish bishops to Louis the Pious in 829, discussing episcopal hospitality, cites 255 256 257

258 260 262 263

Concilia Rispacense, Frisingense, Salisburgense 800, MGH Conc. 2:34, pp. 207–8, c. 4. LM 4:9, p. 162; On Jonas, see above, p. 207. DIL 3:10, col. 253; LM 4:8, p. 160; DVV 17, col. 626, following Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion 19; see Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion, ed. M. P. J. Van den Hout et al., Aurelii Augustini opera. Pars 13, 2, CCSL 46 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 49–114, at p. 88. VB 1, p. 201. 259 DIL 1:20, col. 164; LM 3:10, p. 112. Acts 4:34–5. 261 MGH Cap. i:33, p. 96, c. 27. Siems, Handel, pp. 470–2. Concilium Remense 813, MGH Conc. 2:35, p. 255, c. 17.

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Power and wealth Jerome’s view that ‘a layman, if he receives one or two or a few people, fulils his oice of hospitality; and a bishop, unless he receives all, is judged inhumane’.264 Even the limited demands of hospitality might be grudged by some laymen. Jonas complained about would-be hosts who haggled and demanded payment for ires and other individual items.265 His main emphasis, and that of other moralists, was on the scriptural and theological justiication for hospitality, that Christ was received in the person of the stranger.266 The key text used was Matthew 25:31–46, in which Jesus promised eternal life to those who showed charity to others: both Paulinus and Dhuoda cite parts of this passage in their mirrors.267 Conveniently, however, as Jonas pointed out, Jesus here promised rewards even for those who only gave a cup of cold water.268 Apart from alms-giving and hospitality, the lay mirrors say little else speciic on the need for charitable deeds by nobles. Dhuoda contents herself with three statements: that William should shelter pilgrims and eat with them; that he should let priests feed the poor from his table; and that he should ofer to all, high and low, ‘service and honour not only in words, but also in deeds’.269 Jonas is more detailed, telling the rich that they should visit all the sick, poor as well as rich; their role, however, is not only to help the poor materially, but also to remind them that their sickness is a punishment from God. Jonas also argues that the poor should, in return, be allowed to visit sick rich men, and that the rich should help bury the poor and attend their funerals.270 In contrast to Carolingian monastic saints, who are sometimes shown in menial roles, such as gardening or cleaning shoes,271 no Carolingian king or lay nobleman is shown as voluntarily carrying out symbolic gestures of service, such as washing the feet of the poor, an activity common in later royal ritual. When Paschasius shows Wala doing menial tasks, it is only because Charlemagne is deliberately humiliating him.272 A reluctance by moralists to promote either service to the poor or sacriicial giving may have corresponded to social realities. Some menial activities were seen as resulting in a loss of status to those concerned: the 264

265 267 269 270 272

Episcoporum ad Hludowicum imperatorem relatio 829, MGH Cap. ii:196, pp. 31–2, c. 7, following Jerome, Commentariorum in epistolam ad Titum 1:8–9; see Jerome, Commentariorum in epistolam ad Titum, PL 23, cols. 555–600, at col. 568. DIL 2:29, col. 231. 266 Boshof, ‘Untersuchungen’, pp. 288–9. LE 66, col. 281; LM 4:9, p. 162. 268 DIL 2:29, col. 234. LM 3:10, 3:11, 10:2 (stanza 9), pp. 110, 122, 220. DIL 3:14, 3:15, cols. 259–64. 271 VA 9, col. 1513; VB 2, p. 202. EA 1:6, col. 1572.

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The use of wealth Istrians in 804 complained not only about their gifts being misappropriated, but also about humiliating services they were required to perform for their new dux.273 There was also clearly tension inherent between generosity in alms-giving and the expectations of heirs and dependants. Capitularies relect this tension about gifts for the sake of one’s soul. Around 818 Louis the Pious speciied that no cleric was to receive goods from anyone without the consent of any children or relatives disinherited.274 Yet in another capitulary from the same period, he stated that every free man had the power to give his goods for the sake of his soul.275 Intriguingly, such a gift could be to a ‘venerated place’, to a relative (propinquus) or to someone else: gifts to churches were not the sole means of salvation. Although texts focused on the dispersal of landed wealth, social norms also probably made large charitable gifts of movable wealth problematic.276 Donations simply to the ‘poor’ are rare in early medieval wills, although they are commonly recorded in narrative sources.277 There are few private gifts visible to hospitalia and xenedochia (lodgings for pilgrims); the Synod of Pavia in 850 complained that instructions in wills to donate to them were being disregarded by heirs.278 Instead, there were more targeted and limited donations.279 Bequests raised moral issues for survivors as well as the donor. Both placita and wills show moral and social pressures to ensure that instructions to donate land as alms were carried out after the grantee’s death.280 Yet the extent of such obligations should not be overstated. The case of Ercanfrida, the widow of Count Nithad of Trier, is revealing. Her will, from the mid 850s, shows a gendered vulnerability, setting up an elaborate public enactment to ensure that her wishes were carried out by her trustees.281 The fact that one Italian capitulary from around 790 authorised the royal missus and local bishop to check that promised charitable donations were carried out promptly after death also hints at problems.282 Matthew Innes sees Ercanfrida’s will as evidence for ‘the workings of a moral economy of alms-giving and inheritance, a moral economy 273 274 275 276 278 279

280 282

Innes, ‘Framing’, pp. 42–6. Capitulare ecclesiasticum 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:138, p. 277, c. 7. Capitula legibus addenda 818–19, MGH Cap. i:139, p. 282, c. 6. Reuter, ‘Testaments’. 277 Ibid., p. 22. Boshof, ‘Untersuchungen’, pp. 332, 338. Brigitte Kasten, ‘Erbrechtliche Verfügungen des 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Organisation und zur Schriftlichkeit bei der Verwaltung adeliger Grundherrschaften am Beispiel des Grafen Heccard aus Burgund’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung 107 (1990), 236–338 provides an overview of surviving Carolingian wills. Innes, State, pp. 69–72. 281 Nelson, ‘Wary widow’, pp. 95–113. Pippini capitulare, MGH Cap. i:95, p. 201, c. 8.

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Power and wealth driven by the binding personal obligation on those who had inherited wealth to give alms on behalf of the individual from whom they had inherited’.283 The idea that this was a binding norm is contradicted, however, in a rare explicit statement by Dhuoda. She makes it clear that William should pray for his father’s relatives to the extent to which they have left property to him, but mentions alms-giving only for Theoderic, William’s godfather.284 There is one surprising omission in the lay mirrors about alms-giving: there are no speciic suggestions about giving wealth to the church. Nor is this topic brought up in letters to lay nobles; the only speciic ‘begging letter’ I am aware of is Lupus’ to King Ethelwulf.285 This is despite the fact that charters show large numbers of donations by landowners at all levels to churches and monasteries, often using formulae referring to alms extinguishing sins, or promises of eternal reward.286 There are occasional hints visible of social pressure to donate land, but there is little textual evidence of moral pressure on nobles to grant land to churches.287 This is in contrast to the many demands on the laity to ‘return’ land that churches claimed was rightfully theirs. Perhaps the direct solicitation of donation was seen as too worldly: Charlemagne in 811 complained about those who had left the world, but still sought to increase their possessions ‘and under the name of God or whatever saint thus despoil of their goods those rich as well as poor, who they ind to be simpler by nature and less educated and cautious’.288 Another reason, however, may have been that moralists considered the recipient of the alms as relatively unimportant. Unlike some of the Greek Fathers,289 Carolingian lay mirrors do not try and distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor. The key beneit of alms-giving was to the giver, not the recipient. It was this point of view that allowed Alcuin to claim: ‘More to be mourned are those who oppress the poor than those who sufer injury. For those who are oppressed quickly inish their temporal misery: but those who oppress them through injustice will be condemned to eternal lames.’290 Theodulf made a similar point 283 285 286

287 288

289 290

Innes, State, p. 39. 284 LM 8:14; 8:15, pp. 204–6. Lupus, Epistola 84,Vol. ii, pp. 70–3. Innes, State, pp. 31–3; Arnold Angenendt et al., ‘Counting piety in the early and high Middle Ages’, in Bernhard Jussen (ed.), Ordering Medieval Society: Perspectives on Intellectual and Practical Modes of Shaping Social Relations (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 15–54. Innes, State, p. 23. Capitula de causis cum episcopis et abbatibus tractandis 811, MGH Cap. i:72, p. 163, c. 5: ‘et sub nomine Dei aut cuiuslibet sancti tam divitem quam pauperum, qui simpliciores natura sunt et minus docti atque cauti inveniuntur, sic rebus suis expoliant’. Karayiannis and Dodd, ‘Greek Christian Fathers’, pp. 189–90. DVV 21, col. 629.

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Conclusion in his poem on judges: ‘more lamentable is he that does unjust acts than he who endures them, the former perishes by doing that; the latter by bearing it, lourishes.’291 Conclusion Anastassios Karayiannis and Sarah Dodd, discussing eastern patristic thought on ‘social justice’, claim: ‘The Greek Fathers were not apologists for the economic ruling class. On the contrary … they wrote in defense of the rights of the poor, attacking the unfairness and inhumanity of the rich.’292 In contrast, Malcolm Godden sees Ælfric in late-tenthcentury England as having an ‘interest in defending the moral position of the rich.’293 Where did Carolingian authors it into this spectrum of attitudes to the wealthy? Michel Mollat comments on Jonas, probably the most radical of the mirror writers: ‘he does not appear to have been much concerned with the evangelical aspect of poverty. Provided that the rich man uses his property wisely and does not steal from his neighbor or church, he has fulilled his moral duty.’294 Certainly, poverty to Carolingian authors was primarily a natural problem, not a social one, a view already seen in Augustine.295 In contrast to Caesarius of Arles, Carolingian authors did not describe alms-giving as restoring to the poor what was rightfully theirs.296 Frankish moral texts are also noticeable for their acceptance of conspicuous consumption. Expenditure on luxuries was rarely seen as money that should instead have gone to the poor. New Testament passages seeing rich men as sinful were largely ignored. Yet Carolingian moral thought on wealth also shows noticeable gaps, relecting the uneasy adaptation of moral norms developed in one economic system (the Roman empire) being applied to a very diferent socio-economic world. The morality of gift-exchange, a central aspect of Carolingian society, is rarely discussed explicitly. Nor are relections visible on legitimate ways of earning wealth: the lack of New Testament teachings on work, and a focus on asceticism in the late antique Latin West had apparently rendered unusable Old Testament images of wealth 291

292 293 295

296

Paraenesis, 927–8, p. 516: ‘Flebilior sed iniqua gerens, qui sustinet illo est, / Hic quod agendo perit, ille ferendo viget.’ Karayiannis and Dodd, ‘Greek Christian Fathers’, p. 202. Godden, ‘Money’, p. 65. 294 Mollat, Poor, p. 43. Goetz, ‘Unterschichten’, p. 117; Abigail Firey, ‘“For I was hungry and you fed me”: Social justice and economic thought in the Latin Patristic and medieval Christian traditions’, in Lowry and Gordon, Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas, pp. 333–70, at pp. 333–4. Anne-Marie Abel, ‘La Pauvreté dans la pensée et la pastorale de Saint Césaire d’Arles’, in Michel Mollat (ed.), Etudes sur l’histoire de la pauvreté (Paris, 1974), pp. 111–21, at p. 113.

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Power and wealth acquired morally from successful agriculture.297 Hence there is a paradox in the generally positive view that Carolingian moralists have of the rich: being rich was rarely problematic, but becoming rich was still often morally dubious. 297

Davies, ‘Work and slavery’, pp. 331–8.

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Chapter 8

MAR RI AGE

As already indicated, marriage, alongside warfare, was one of the key markers deining lay status in the Carolingian period, while both clerics and monks were expected to abstain from all sexual activity.1 The marital and sexual norms for the laity were therefore distinctive, but lay behaviour was not solely a ‘private’ matter to be decided within the patriarchal familia. The key social role of marriage throughout western history meant that rulers recurrently legislated on the topic and on related sexual issues,2 while the church’s interest in marriage and sexuality developed from an early date. The irst Frankish synods under Carolingian control, in the 740s and 750s, were already concerned to regulate these key aspects of lay life.3 In this chapter the Carolingian norms on marriage will be analysed, while Chapter 9 deals with sexual behaviour both inside and outside marriage. Although there is some overlap between the two topics, especially in the wide-ranging concept of ‘incest’ (discussed below), such a separation can help clarify the reformers’ priorities. Christianity had developed an understanding of marriage unknown both to Judaism and the classical world, in which marriage was seen as possessing a sacramental character.4 St Paul and his followers, attempting to preserve the institution of the pious Jewish household in new Christian communities, developed an ideology of the loving, but hierarchical marriage.5 The debate in the fourth-century West over clerical celibacy demonstrates the varied views of patristic writers, ranging from Jerome’s denigration of married people to Augustine’s development of a substantial theology of marriage.6 Bitter conlicts between late antique 1 2

3 4 6

See Chapter 1, pp. 7–8. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York, 1986), pp. 101–2: marriage and sexual behaviour were already an important part of the earliest Near Eastern lawcodes. On the synods held under Carloman and Pippin III, see Hartmann, Die Synoden, pp. 47–82. Reynolds, Marriage, pp. xvi–xvii, 413–14. 5 Brown, Body and Society, pp. 50–8. On Augustine’s theology see Reynolds, Marriage, pp. 241–311.

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Marriage churchmen over claims to authority within Christian society thus lay behind patristic texts.7 Subsequently removed from their political context, such texts were to be the raw material for many Carolingian discussions of marriage and sex. As Jean Gaudemet has pointed out, the vocabulary of marriage inherited from the fourth and ifth century (terms such as desponsatio, used for an intermediate stage in the process of marriage, and matrimonium) was also vague.8 S tudying marri age Studies of the history of early medieval marriage have tended to concentrate on its sociological, religious or legal aspects.9 Detailed prosopographical research has provided the basis for a number of studies of family structures and marriage strategies among the Carolingian and post-Carolingian nobility.10 Other scholars have examined Carolingian marriage within a developing Catholic theological and legal tradition.11 This has often led to a teleological view, in which the signiicance of the Carolingian period is due largely to its preiguring of aspects of the canon law of marriage. Pierre Toubert’s work is unusual in its attempts to stress the distinctiveness of Carolingian religious views on marriage.12 Although there has traditionally been little overlap between these two approaches, more recently there have been attempts to site incest regulations within both a social situation and a religious discourse of purity.13 Scholarship from a civil law tradition, meanwhile, has focused on ‘Germanic’ marriage, particularly on the conditions necessary for a valid marriage, often drawing on material from many diferent cultures and periods. Since there is no early medieval secular law that gives the positive requirements for a valid marriage, this approach has been 7

8

9 10

11

12

13

On the controversy over the views of Jovinian, the stimulus to the writing of the most inluential patristic texts on marriage, see David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity:The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford, 2007), pp. 207–84. Jean Gaudemet, ‘Le Lien matrimonial: Les Incertitudes du haut Moyen-Age’, in Sociétés et mariage (Strasburg, 1980), pp. 185–209, at p. 189. For a useful overview of the literature, see Nelson, ‘Family, gender and sexuality’. See for example Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir; Martin Aurell, Les Noces du comte: Mariage et pouvoir en Catalogne (785–1213), Histoire ancienne et médiévale 32 (Paris, 1995). See for example Pierre Daudet, Etudes sur l’histoire de la jurisdiction matrimoniale: Les Origines carolingiennes de la compétence exclusive de l’église (France et Germanie) (Paris, 1933); Gaudemet, Mariage en occident; Reynolds, Marriage. Toubert,‘La Théorie’; Pierre Toubert,‘The Carolingian moment (eighth–tenth century)’, in Andre Burguière et al. (eds.), A History of the Family. Volume 1: Distant Worlds, Ancient Worlds (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 379–406. Heene, Legacy concentrates on moralists’ views about married women. See for example Mayke de Jong, ‘An unsolved riddle: Early medieval incest legislation’, in Wood, Franks and Alamanni, pp. 107–40. On incest, see below, pp. 261–5.

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Raptus problematic. In particular, there has been a persistent tendency to distinguish supposedly legally separate forms of marriage, such as Friedelehe (marriage by mutual consent alone), Muntehe (marriage where the husband acquired full legal control over his wife), Raubehe (marriage by capture) and Kaufehe (marriage by purchase). This terminology is not early medieval, and the supposed distinctions have very little evidential basis, often relying more on outdated theories on Germanic culture.14 Instead, a range of statuses seem to have been possible for a ‘wife’, depending crucially on the signiicance of her family.15 Merovingian and Carolingian sources classify women into binary categories of uxores and concubinae, but these often relect moral and political judgements rather than any clear legal distinction.16 In this chapter I will not try and separate out ‘moral’ from ‘legal’ views on marriage, nor secular and church law. Hincmar’s long treatise on Lothar II’s marital problems, De divortio Lothari regis et Theutbergae reginae, shows that such categories had little meaning for the period. Hincmar provided intertwined answers to both legal and moral questions on marriage, drawing on patristic authors as well as Roman law and canons. My focus, instead, will be on norms: how authors thought noblemen should enter and leave marriage, even if such views were not always enforced or enforceable. I will consider irst the desired restrictions on contracting marriages (raptus, incest and polygamy) and then restrictions on ending them (divorce and remarriage). RAPTUS

Raptus is a topic frequently dealt with by Carolingian assemblies and councils. A ninth-century summary list of ines deines it as: ‘he who takes a free woman against the will of her relatives [parentes]’.17 It could thus be a question of either abduction or elopement, and did not necessarily involve rape. Although the consent of the woman involved was not the key factor, a few texts do distinguish between diferent circumstances. For example, the Capitula legibus addenda from 818 × 819, which prohibits the remarriage of widows within thirty days of widowhood and

14

15 16 17

See most recently on Friedelehe: Andrea Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau? Konkubinen im frühen Mittelalter, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 52 (Cologne, 2002), pp. 11–36; Ruth Mazo Karras, ‘The history of marriage and the myth of Friedelehe’, Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006), 119–51. Airlie, ‘Private bodies’, pp. 14–18; Karras, ‘History of marriage’, p. 130. Karras, ‘History of marriage’, pp. 145–50. Summula de bannis, MGH Cap. i:110, p. 224, c. 5.

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Marriage describes this ofence as raptus, has higher penalties if the remarriage was against the woman’s will.18 Raptus was also a gendered crime; there is no speciic term for the equivalent problem of men marrying without the consent of their own parents, although formulae and some cases involving kings’ sons imply that such consent was seen as needed for a valid marriage.19 The underlying motivation of raptus was normally marriage. Marriage by abduction has a long history in many cultures where arranged marriages are the norm, as a marginal alternative to such marriages.20 Abductions were thus socially disruptive, louting the authority of the family, and possibly provoking retaliation. As a result, from the fourth century, Roman emperors began to treat raptus as a public ofence and legislate against it; some conciliar legislation and patristic writings also discussed the issue.21 Salic law condemned abductions, but ines were the only penalties unless the man carrying out the ofence was unfree.22 Childebert II in 595 went further, ordering the raptor [the perpetrator of the ofence] to be killed or exiled; the same penalty applied to the woman if she had consented to the raptus.23 Generally, however, raptus in the Merovingian period seems to have been a recognised, if condemned, method of acquiring a wife.24 Formularies show a process in which an abduction marriage could be made into a normal marriage by the subsequent endowment of the bride.25 Merovingian conciliar decrees focus mainly on the abduction of consecrated women: the two exceptions are the Council of Orléans of 511 (on the treatment of raptores who lee to sanctuary)26 and the Council of Orléans of 541 (which forbids marrying a woman without parental consent ‘through the command [imperium] of power’).27 While Carolingian lay mirrors rarely mention raptus, Carolingian councils and assemblies frequently legislated on it.28 It was a major ofence against public order, and counts and missi were speciically ordered to 18

19 20

21

22

23 24 26 27 28

Capitula legibus addenda 818–19, MGH Cap. i:139, p. 281, c. 4. For secular legislation speciically on rape, see Ganshof, ‘Statut de la femme’, pp. 45–6. Wemple, Women, p. 84; Nicholas I, Epistola 9, p. 275; Reynolds, Marriage, p. 388. J. Evans-Grubbs, ‘Abduction marriage in late antiquity: A law of Constantine (CTh ix.24.1) and its social context’, Journal of Roman Studies 79 (1989), 59–83, at pp. 61–4. Denise Grodzynski, ‘Ravies et coupables: Un essai d’interprétation de la loi ix, 24, 1 du Code Théodosien’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome 96 (1984), 697–726. James A. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), p. 73. PLS 13, pp. 59–63. On this law see Frank Siegmund,‘Pactus legis Salicae s 13: Über den Frauenraub in der Merowingerzeit’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 32 (1998), 101–23. PLS, Capitula Legi Salicae addita, Capitulare vi, 2:2, p. 268. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 298–9. 25 Ibid., p. 268. Concilium Aurelianense 511, MGH Conc. 1, p. 3, c. 2. Concilium Aurelianense 541, MGH Conc. 1, p. 92, c. 22. DIL 1:20, col. 162 has a passing mention.

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Raptus investigate such cases.29 A particular concern is visible from the early ninth century onwards. Louis the Pious, for example, in a capitulary from 818 × 819 stressed that divine as well as human authority forbade raptus.30 There were several high-proile cases involving kings’ daughters from the mid ninth century onwards. Lothar I’s daughter was abducted by Giselbert in 846, and Charles the Bald’s daughter Judith eloped with Baldwin of Flanders in 862, while in the early 890s Engelschalk abducted a daughter of Arnulf.31 Regine Le Jan sees raptus as becoming a ‘social scourge’ in this period, and links this to increasingly rigid social hierarchies; Sylvie Joye locates the problem more speciically as greater restrictions on Carolingian princesses marrying than during the reign of Louis the Pious.32 The increased abduction of royal relatives, however, was probably also due to the new possibilities available once a raptor could easily seek asylum in another kingdom. Several treaties between Carolingian rulers speciically stated that raptores leeing a jurisdiction were to be returned.33 While Carolingian conciliar decrees and capitularies all agreed on the need to prevent and punish raptus, they were inconsistent about one key aspect: could a valid marriage be created from an act of raptus in some circumstances? Discussions focused on the four main classes of women involved: nuns, betrothed girls, girls who were not betrothed and widows. The irst Saxon capitulary from 782 × 785 is unique in speciically condemning the raptus of the daughter of someone’s lord: the death penalty it orders for this probably relects speciic concerns about the need to enforce ‘idelity’ in all senses on the Saxons.34 There is general agreement in Carolingian texts that raptores could not marry nuns or women consecrated to God. Such men were often excommunicated;35 even the Council of Meaux–Paris in 845–6, which was generally more lenient towards raptus, said that abductors of nuns 29

30 31

32 33

34 35

See for example Capitula a misso cognita facta, MGH Cap. i:59, p. 146, c. 1; Constitutio de Hispanis in Francorum regnum profugis prima, MGH Cap. i:132, p. 262, c. 2; Concilium Aquisgranense 836, MGH Conc. 2:56, p. 723, c. 65; Capitulare missorum Silvacense 853, MGH Cap. ii:260, pp. 271–2, c. 2. Capitulare ecclesiasticum 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:138, p. 278, c. 22. On these cases see Karl Ferdinand Werner, ‘Die Nachkommen Karls des Grossen bis um das Jahr 1000 (1.–8. Generation)’, in Wolfgang Braunfels (ed.), Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben. Band IV: Das Nachleben (Düsseldorf, 1965), pp. 403–79, at p. 449; Sylvie Joye, ‘Le Rapt de Judith par Baudoin de Flandre (862): Un “clinamen sociologique”?’, in Bougard, Feller and Le Jan, Les Elites, pp. 361–79; Stone, ‘Bound’, pp. 468–9, 478 n. 17; AF(B) 893, p. 122. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 299; Joye, ‘Rapt de Judith’, pp. 363–4. See for example Hlotharii, Hludowicii et Karoli conventus apud Marsnam secundus 851, MGH Cap. ii:205, p. 73, c. 5. Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, MGH Cap. i:26, p. 69, c. 12. See Chapter 6, p. 198. See for example Capitulare ecclesiasticum 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:138, p. 279, c. 25; Council of Ver 844, MGH Conc. 3:7, p. 41, c. 6.

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Marriage should be barred from all future marriage and marital intercourse.36 The punishment of such men might not be limited to church penalties alone: Charlemagne ‘made an example’ of the case of Fricco and a nun around 802, while in 887 a relative of Liutward of Vercelli was allegedly struck dead by God after Liutward abducted a nun for him to marry.37 While late antique conciliar legislation tended to argue that betrothed girls who were abducted must be returned to their iancés, even if violated, Salic law did not require this.38 Under Louis the Pious, however, regulations begin to appear that speciically banned the raptor from marrying a betrothed woman.39 This prohibition against subsequent marriage was extended at the same time to raptores of girls who were not yet betrothed.40 Yet there was no consistency between subsequent councils on this matter. The Council of Meaux–Paris in 845–6 allowed a raptor, after doing penance, to marry the widow or girl he had abducted, whether or not she was betrothed. It barred only the serial raptor from all marriage.41 In contrast, the Council of Pavia in 850 insisted that the ‘statutes of the ancient Fathers’ should be maintained, in which a legitimate marriage with the raptor was not possible.42 It is misleading to conclude from this lack of consistency that ‘the Frankish church mitigated its earlier intransigence on rape and abduction’,43 or was ambivalent about abduction, because it involved consensual marriage.44 As Ines Weber points out, clerical sources’ ambivalence was on whether or not the couple’s consent alone created a valid marriage.45 No Carolingian text approved of raptus or recognised it as a valid way of creating a marriage. Some Carolingian moralists were, however, prepared to follow in a long Christian tradition of accepting raptus after the fact. Basil of Caesara in the fourth century, for example, had allowed marriage after abduction provided the girl was not already betrothed and that her parents’ agreement could be gained.46 36 37 38

39

40 41 42 44 45

46

MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 116, c. 67. Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 97, c. 33; AF(M) 887, pp. 105–6. See for example Council of Ancyra 314, cited by Capitulare ecclesiasticum 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:138, p. 279, c. 24; PLS 13:12, 13:13, p. 63. See for example Capitulare ecclesiasticum 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:138, p. 279, c. 24; Capitula legibus addenda 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:139, p. 282, c. 9; Capitula incerta, MGH Cap. i:156, p. 315, c. 1. See Capitulare ecclesiasticum 818 × 819, MGH Cap. i:138, p. 278, c. 23. MGH Conc. 3:11, pp. 115–17, cc. 64–8. Ibid. 3:23, p. 224, c. 10. 43 Wemple, Women, p. 82. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 301. Ines Weber, ‘“Consensus facit nuptias!” Überlegungen zum ehelichen Konsens in normativen Texten des Frühmittelalters’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 118 (2001), 31–66, at pp. 52–7. Evans-Grubbs, ‘Abduction marriage’, pp. 73–6.

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Raptus Carolingian moralists who allowed a valid marriage to be made from raptus often stressed the need for damage limitation. The Council of Meaux–Paris stated that it allowed subsequent marriage for raptores with the widow or virgin they had abducted after public penance because of ‘incontinence’, and added that ‘we have not constituted a rule … but consider what is more tolerable’.47 Couples allowed to marry subsequently were exhorted to give alms and do good works, and told that any sons born before their marriage were ‘less worthily born [minus laudabile procreati]’.48 A concern for social order also motivated papal intervention in the most prominent case of raptus in the period, the (consensual) abduction of Charles the Bald’s widowed daughter Judith by Baldwin in 862.49 After a secular legal judgement, the west Frankish bishops anathematised them.50 Baldwin, however, appealed to Pope Nicholas; thanks to his intervention, the pair were reconciled to Charles, who allowed a legal marriage ‘on the advice of his faithful men’.51 Nicholas, in his appeals to Charles and others, stressed that he asked for mercy for Baldwin and did not demand Charles’ forgiveness,52 but that he was concerned ‘lest something still worse may perhaps arise from this’.53 His speciic concern seems to have been that Baldwin might ally with the Vikings in opposition to Charles.54 As a result, the west Frankish bishops were reluctantly forced to accept Baldwin and Judith’s subsequent marriage.55 The hostility of the west Frankish bishops in 863 is probably due to the inluence of Hincmar, the most prominent holder of the rigorist view that a valid marriage could never be made from raptus, even with subsequent parental consent. Such a view was not new: it irst appears, however, not in ecclesiastical sources, but in Constantine’s legislation, when it was probably motivated more by reactions to speciic cases than contemporary theological views.56 Hincmar’s most articulate development of this view is in his treatise De coercendo et exstirpando raptu viduarum, puellarum ac sanctimonialium, the only Carolingian text that provides a theological discussion of raptus.57 The work demonstrates how little theological tradition there was. Hincmar quotes no patristic comments speciically on raptus. An appendix to the treatise includes extracts from the canons on raptus: only two

47 50 51 53 56 57

MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 115, c. 65. 48 Ibid., c. 64. 49 See above, p. 251. Hludowici, Karoli et Hlotharii II conventus apud Saponarias 862, MGH Cap. ii:243, pp. 160–1, c. 5. AB 863, p. 66. 52 Nicholas I, Epistolae 7–8, pp. 272–5, 361. Ibid. 60, p. 369. 54 Ibid. 7, p. 274. 55 Hincmar, Epistola 169, p. 146. Evans-Grubbs, ‘Abduction marriage’, pp. 81–3. See Chapter 2, p. 45. I give a more extended discussion of this text in Stone, ‘Invention’.

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Marriage of these extracts refer to betrothed women and two to unbetrothed girls, while eleven deal with consecrated virgins or nuns. Hincmar therefore had to develop his own theology of abduction: the result was an incoherent mix of worst-case scenarios and selective use of the Bible.58 He stresses the ‘sacrilegious’ nature of raptus and the violence involved, ignoring the possibility of non-violent elopement. Instead he proclaims that raptores ‘do not fear to violate the temple of God, which is the holiness of the faithful’.59 No legitimate marriage can ever be made out of such an ‘unequal disorder’ (iniquum conturbium).60 The men who perpetrate such deeds are ‘bandits’ worthy of death, who often compound their ofence by additional acts.61 Some violently enter churches when excommunicated; others have arbitrarily killed their previous wives on suspicion of adultery.62 Hincmar’s use of the Bible required equally convoluted reasoning.63 He quotes the sections of Deuteronomy condemning those who rape betrothed girls,64 yet omits the subsequent verses which demand that the rapist of the girl who is not betrothed marries her.65 He condemns King David’s relationship with Bathsheba, which he equates to raptus, and insists that although the marriage was allowed to continue, this is not an example to be copied.66 He also includes a substantial discussion of Judges 20–1, in which the Benjaminites stage a mass abduction of brides, since the other Israelite tribes have vowed they will not allow their daughters to marry into the tribe.67 Hincmar claims that there were extenuating circumstances: the Benjaminite action was done ‘rationally, for the sake of public utility [pro publica utilitate], by public authority and intercession; it is thus unparalleled and not to imitated at all’.68 Hincmar’s treatise shows the diiculties entailed in understanding raptus as an ofence against God. There is none of the usual focus on the injury to the relatives of the abducted girl, other than passing references to ‘paternal authority’.69 Yet Hincmar’s attempts to create speciically religious prohibitions of raptus merely conirm the lack of any substantial Christian argument on the matter. This lack of theological underpinnings accounts for the contradictory rulings on the punishment for the raptus of laywomen. If raptus was only a violation of the secular social order, then it could potentially be 58 61 64 65 67 69

Ibid., pp. 437–41. 59 De coercendo 4, col. 1020. 60 Ibid. Ibid. 7, col. 1022. 62 Ibid. 7, 8, cols. 1022–3. 63 Stone, ‘Invention’, pp. 441–3. De coercendo 5, 6, col. 1021, citing Deuteronomy 22:23–7. Deuteronomy 22:28–9. 66 De coercendo 13, col. 1027. Ibid. 15–17, cols. 1028–31. 68 Ibid. 16, col. 1030. See for example ibid. 2, col. 1018.

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Incest solved by negotiation. Giselbert, Baldwin of Flanders and Engelschalk all recovered favour with the kings whose daughters they had abducted or eloped with.70 The alternative could be bloody: in 868 Eleutherius carried of and married Pope Hadrian II’s daughter, who was already betrothed to another man. When missi were sent to judge him, he killed his wife and her mother, before being slain himself.71 The need to pacify such quarrels is probably what led some Carolingian moralists to temper their condemnations of raptus with lenient penalties. Ince st Most societies have rules banning sexual intercourse between some close relatives (incest) and also the marriage of some relatives (endogamy).72 These prohibitions do not necessarily coincide, but both are often combined by scholars under the term ‘incest’. To Carolingian moralists, incestum had even wider meanings, sometimes used for sexual relationships with nuns, and other forms of sexual disorder.73 Jonas, for example, states: ‘Since every illicit coition is incest, how much more is coition with related women, and those dedicated to God, considered as incest: for those who have intercourse with either a virgin consecrated to God, or with related blood, are judged as incestuous [incesti], that is unchaste [incasti].’74 Jonas’ statement is repeated around ifty years later by the Council of Douzy in 874.75 In what follows I have attempted to distinguish ‘incest’ (any sexual contact) from ‘incestuous marriage’, but some sources are too vague to make this distinction clear.76 For example, the Council of Mainz of 847, in a chapter on ‘condemned marriages’ refers to penalties: ‘if some man takes a widow in marriage and afterwards fornicates with his stepdaughter, or marries two sisters, or some woman marries two brothers or a father and a son. Again, if some man violates his brother’s widow with carnal joining, or takes as a wife his brother’s wife, if someone marries his stepmother, if someone shamelessly joins his cousin to himself ’. It is not clear whether this passage simply show attempts at elegant variation, or is clumsily attempting to distinguish marriage from other 70 72 73 75 76

See above, p. 251. 71 AB 868, p. 92. Robin Fox, The Red Lamp of Incest (London, 1980), p. 4. De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, p. 117. 74 DIL 2:8, col. 183. Council of Douzy 874, MGH Conc. 4:40a, p. 583. I prefer the term ‘incestuous marriage’ to ‘consanguineous marriage’, since not only blood relatives could be covered by prohibitions, but also aines (relatives by marriage) and relationships created through godparenthood.

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Marriage sexual unions, especially since the author is here combining two earlier canons. 77 Restrictions on marriage with relatives are found in Jewish, classical Roman and early Christian traditions, but western Europe was exceptional in the wide-ranging prohibitions it developed.78 There were important discussions at the Council of Epaon in 517, which included a far more extensive list of relatives than previous councils.79 Frankish rulers also began to legislate on the topic from the end of the sixth century.80 Further developments followed in the eighth century, when both papal decrees and Frankish capitularies repeatedly discussed the topic. ‘Spiritual kinship’ via godparenthood was added to the list of impediments for the irst time in the West, and the prohibited degrees were also extended; several popes stated that no known relatives could marry one another.81 Regulations on incestuous marriages continued to be an important theme of both church councils and secular legislation throughout the Carolingian period. Those who contracted such marriages were threatened with both religious and secular punishments;82 incest was seen as a crime akin to homicide, and in 846 the Emperor Lothar I speciically stated it to be a ‘public’ crime.83 There was also an unusual emphasis on enforcing these prohibitions.84 Several of Charlemagne’s capitularies demanded that bishops, priests and neighbours had to investigate couples’ genealogies before marriages took place.85 The Council of Meaux–Paris 77

78

79

80 81 82

83

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Council of Mainz 847, MGH Conc. 3:14, p. 175, c. 29: ‘De damnatis nuptiis. Si quis viduam uxorem duxerit et postea cum iliastra sua fornicatus fuerit seu duabus sororibus nupserit; aut si qua duobus fratribus nupserit seu cum patre et ilio, item si quis relictam fratris … carnali coniunctione violaverit, si quis fratris germanam uxorem accepit, si quis novercam duxerit, si quis consobrine suae impudice se sociaverit’.The earlier canons cited are Epaon 517, MGH Conc. i, p. 26, c. 30; and Mainz 813, MGH Conc. 2, p. 273, c. 56. De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, p. 114. Jean Fleury, Recherches historiques sur les empêchements de parenté dans le mariage canonique des origines aux Fausses Décrétales (Paris, 1933) gives the most detailed discussion of incest legislation from pre-Christian precedents to the mid 840s. For the rest of the ninth century, see Patrick Corbet, Autour de Burchard de Worms: L’Eglise allemande et les interdits de parenté, Ixème–xIIème siècle, Ius commune 142 (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), pp. 1–49. Fleury, Recherches, pp. 86–91; Ian Wood, ‘Incest, law and the Bible in sixth-century Gaul’, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998), 291–303, at pp. 296–7. De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, p. 118; Wood, ‘Incest’, pp. 293–4. Lynch, Godparents, pp. 236–57; Fleury, Recherches, pp. 135, 77. See for example Pippini regis capitulare, MGH Cap. i:13, p. 31, c. 1; Concilium Vernense 755, MGH Cap. i:14, p. 35, c. 9; Capitula e canonibus excerpta 813, MGH Cap. i:78, p. 174, c. 8. Council of Tours 813, MGH Conc. 2:38, p. 292, c. 41; Hlotharii capitulare de expeditione contra Saracenos facienda 846, MGH Cap. ii:203, p. 66, c. 6. Pierre Toubert, ‘L’Institution du mariage chrétien de l’Antiquité tardive à l’an mil’, Morfologie sociali e culturali in Europa fra tarda antichità e alto medioevo, 3–9 aprile 1997, 2 vols., Settimane 45 (Spoleto, 1998),Vol. i, pp. 503–53, at pp. 534–5. See for example Concilium Foroiuliense 796/7, MGH Conc. 2:21, pp. 191–2, c. 8; Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 98, c. 35.

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Incest in 845–6 demanded that potentes ensure there was no ‘adulterous incest’ within their households; an earlier Italian capitulary had already required lords to check if any of their men had made illegal marriages.86 Bishops were ordered to search out ofenders and impose separation and penance on them, and apparently took these responsibilities seriously: a letter from Solomon II of Constance to Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz explains how he dealt with several alleged cases in his diocese.87 Secular penalties were also enforced. In 807 Charlemagne coniscated the estates of a certain Godebert for ‘incestuous and other illicit actions’, while Louis the Pious probably also coniscated goods from the incestuous in the early part of his reign: a capitulary from 821 refuses the return of goods coniscated before 816 for that reason.88 They did not, however, demand the death penalty as Childebert II had done.89 In contrast to expanding prohibitions and investigations of incestuous marriage, there were fewer attempts to combat incest in its speciic sense of sexual encounters between relatives. The penitentials included prohibitions on the ‘classic’ forms of incest taboo signiicant in many other cultures (parent–child and brother–sister sexual relationships), but these rarely appear in other Carolingian texts.90 This does not imply acceptance of such relationships; the allegation by Lothar II in the late 850s that Queen Theutberga had committed incest with her brother was clearly intended to cause revulsion. The second Council of Aachen in 860 reported the reaction to Theutberga’s (coerced) confession: ‘horror and sadness equally struck the souls of those present at this account’.91 Carolingian moral texts, however, more often refer to incestuous sexual acts in the context of marriage and ainity. Capitulary and conciliar legislation repeatedly condemned adulterous incest (where a married man or woman sleeps with a relative by marriage) throughout the period.92 Several texts use such concerns to justify prohibitions on underage

86 87

88

89 90 91 92

MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 124, c. 77; Capitula cum Italiae episcopis deliberata, MGH Cap. i:96, p. 202, c. 4. Collectio Sangallenses 30, in Formulae Merowingici et Karolini aevi, ed. Karl Zeumer, MGH Leges, Sectio V (Hanover, 1886), pp. 415–16. Pippini, Carlomanni, Caroli Magni diplomata, ed. Engelbert Mühlbacher et al., MGH Dip. Kar. 1 (Hanover, 1906) 205, pp. 274–5; Capitula missorum 821, MGH Cap. i:148, p. 301, c. 6. PLS, Capitulare vi, i, 2, p. 267. Payer, Sex, pp. 30–2. De divortio, Responsio 1, p. 121. See for example Decretum Compendiense 757, MGH Cap. i:15, p. 38, c. 11 (wife with brother-inlaw), c. 13 (father with son’s iancée); Decretum Vermeriense, MGH Cap. i:16, pp. 40–1, c. 2 (husband with stepdaughter), c. 10 (son with stepmother), c. 11 (husband with stepdaughter or wife’s sister), c. 18 (husband with wife’s cousin); Concilium Moguntiense 813, MGH Conc. 2:36, p. 273, c. 56 (husband with stepdaughter); Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, pp. 237, 239, c. 41 (brother with brother’s wife), c. 45a (husband with wife’s sister).

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Marriage marriage, thought liable to lead to such liaisons.93 There are also repeated prohibitions on successive intercourse with two members of the same family.94 Hrabanus Maurus, for example, discussed the penance required when a woman slept successively with a father and a son, two brothers, or an uncle and a nephew.95 Despite the lurry of legislation, or perhaps because of it, there was continuing confusion about how incest and incestuous marriages should be dealt with. One key problem was exactly which relatives were prohibited: stepmothers were included by some Carolingian texts but not others.96 Even more awkward is that most texts do not indicate the method of calculating degrees of closeness. Some papal decrees refer to generationes, probably relecting a ‘Germanic’ method of calculation, in which generations were counted back to a common ancestor, making irst cousins related in the second degree.97 In contrast, some of Hrabanus Maurus’ discussions imply the use of the ‘Roman’ method of calculation, in which irst cousins were related in the fourth degree.98 Many other texts could potentially be interpreted in either sense. It could also be diicult to get hold of the relevant texts: Boniface asked several correspondents for information on the relatively recent decisions banning the marriage of spiritual kin.99 Nor was there agreement about the degree at which prohibitions ended, with continuing diferences of opinion around marriages in the third, fourth and ifth degree.100 Count Stephen of the Auvergne claimed that he thought those related in the fourth degree could marry, until his confessor read to him canons prohibiting this.101A forged interpolation to Gregory the Great’s Libellus responsionum allowed marriage in the third generatio; this provoked counter-forgeries of papal documents with tighter restrictions.102 Attempts to collect together earlier canons simply added to the confusion. For example, the Council of Douzy in 874 included the forged correspondence in which Gregory the Great tells Bishop Felix of Sicily that his statement that those who had married in the fourth degree should not be 93

94

95 96

97 99 100 101

Capitula e conciliorum canonibus collecta, MGH Cap. i:114, p. 232, c. 1; Council of Pavia 850, MGH Conc. 3:23, p. 229, c. 22. See for example Decretum Compendiense 757, MGH Cap. i:15, p. 39, c. 17 (man with mother and daughter), c. 18 (man with two sisters); Decretum Vermeriense, MGH Cap. i:16, p. 41, c. 12 (man with two sisters); Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, pp. 238–9, c. 43 (woman with father and son or two brothers), c. 45a (man with two sisters). Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 30, pp. 450–2, c. 4. Brigitte Kasten, ‘Stepmothers in Frankish legal life’, in Staford, Nelson and Martindale, Law, pp. 47–67, at pp. 55–6. De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 109–10. 98 Corbet, Autour, p. 10. Boniface, Epistolae 32–4, pp. 55–9. Fleury, Recherches, pp. 218–19; de Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 119–20. Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 89. 102 De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 110–12.

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Incest separated was only a concession to the newly converted English, and that otherwise the rule is seven degrees (gradus). This is followed by Isidore’s statement that consanguinity extends to six degrees and then by decrees from the councils of Rome in 721 and the second synod of Toledo in 527 that banned marriage to all known relatives. Lastly the council quotes the ‘synod of Agde’ (actually Epaon 517), listing speciic relatives whom a man might not marry, but saying nothing about degrees.103 Those who had to deal with marriages in practice might therefore want something more useful than the statement of the Council of Châlons in 813 that they should consult the canons.104 Unfortunately, they were unlikely to receive such advice. As Pierre Toubert points out, there was a noticeable lack of interest in the precise calculations of allowed kin.105 One of the few attempts was by Hrabanus Maurus, who composed and circulated several booklets on the topic of permitted degrees after being asked for his opinion. Hrabanus admitted the inconsistencies between the diferent authorities, seeing the recent papal prohibitions extending to the sixth and seventh generation (generatio) as based ‘more on human custom than divine law’, and arguing for a compromise position of allowing marriage after ive generations.106 He then had to defend his use of the prohibitions in Leviticus as the basis of his argument.107 Hrabanus’ carefully worked out moderate position, however, had only a short-lived efect in the eastern empire: the Council of Worms in 868 was already deining a wider circle of prohibited relatives.108 Nor was there consistency on the procedures for dealing with existing incestuous marriages. The Council of Epaon 517 had already distinguished two classes of forbidden marriages, depending on the relative involved; only one of these classes required those in existing marriages to separate.109 Some Carolingian councils and capitularies made similar distinctions. For example, the Decretum Vermeriense from c. 756 demanded that those related in the third degree separate, but allowed them to remarry. Those married in the fourth degree were not separated, but must do penance.110 Haito of Basel in his episcopal capitulary also wanted life-long penance for those married in the fourth degree; those who had committed incestuous marriage in the irst or second degree could not remarry, those who had committed it in the third degree must do 103 104 105 106 108 109

Council of Douzy 874, MGH Conc. 4:40a, pp. 582–5. Concilium Cabillonense 813, MGH Conc. 2:37, p. 279, c. 28. Toubert, ‘L’Institution du mariage’, pp. 532–3. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 29, pp. 446–7. 107 Ibid. 31, p. 455. On Hrabanus’ views and their after-life, see Corbet, Autour, pp. 8–21. MGH Conc. i, p. 26, c. 30. 110 Decretum Vermeriense, MGH Cap. i:16, p. 40, c. 1.

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Marriage penance, but then could marry others.111 The Council of Aquileia in 796/7 allowed remarriage, but only for those whose marriages had been investigated for possible incest before they took place, not for those who had married without such an investigation.112 Another near-contemporary text, however, the Capitula cum Italiae episcopis deliberata, required all those in incestuous marriages to separate, but said nothing about possible remarriages.113 Patrick Corbet sees a stricter view being introduced after 850, in which separation was almost always demanded, but the repeating of earlier canons that did not necessarily demand separation may have blunted the efect of this.114 Similar confusion existed about the penalties for adulterous incest and fornication with two relatives. Hrabanus told Bishop Reginbald that the penance for incestuous fornication given by the authorities was variously life-long, or ifteen, twelve, ten or seven years, and hastily ducked the issue by adding that Reginbald should vary the time according to the sincerity of the penance.115 The Council of Tribur in 895 discussed a number of situations, probably based on speciic cases, such as a married woman who committed adultery with a father and son, or a man who slept with two sisters.116 They came to quite different conclusions on which of the parties involved might remarry in each case.117 As with the discrepancies on punishments for raptus, this lack of agreement on dealing with the results of ‘incest’ probably relected concerns about practical outcomes as well as principles. A repeated theme was that remarriage might sometimes be allowed, even to the ofending party, because of human frailty. The Council of Aquileia, for example, allowed those who had inadvertently made an incestuous marriage after an investigation to remarry ‘because of incontinence or, what is more honourable, love of sons … yet we say this as remission [indulgentia], not as a command [imperium]’.118 The Council of Mainz in 861 × 863 similarly allowed a woman who has fornicated with a man who has also slept with her sister to marry, ‘so that she might not be carried to the chaos 111 112 113 114 115 116

117 118

MGH Cap. Episc. 1, p. 217, c. 21. Concilium Foroiuliense 796/7, MGH Conc. 2:21, p. 192, c. 8. Capitula cum Italiae episcopis deliberata, MGH Cap. i:96, p. 202, c. 4. Corbet, Autour, p. 27. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 30, pp. 451–2, c. 4. Three diferent versions of the council acts survive: for the interrelation of the canons on incest (numbered Iudicia 5–7, cc. 40–5, 47–8; Extravagantes 3–4 in the MGH version), see Rudolf Pokorny, ‘Die drei Versionen der Triburer Synodalakten’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 48 (1992), 429–512, at pp. 468–9. See Chapter 9, p. 306. Concilium Foroiuliense 796/7, MGH Conc. 2:21, p. 192, c. 8.

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Incest of fornication’.119 Practical concerns also motivated texts that warned against the abuse of creating spiritual kinship in order to dissolve a marriage, by acting as godparent to one’s own child. This tactic was particularly attributed to women.120 Hrabanus Maurus is most explicit about the problems of taking a hard line on incest. In his letter to Bishop Hunbert of Würzburg discussing prohibited degrees, he argued that if all those who were related, however distantly, had their marriages instantly dissolved: I fear that the evil of adulteries and fornication would be multiplied, since when the asssociation of his equal [compar] is denied to a married adolescent or a young man [iuvenis], nor is any solace given to him, by which he may be able to preserve continence, inlamed with lust by the devil’s instigation, he is perhaps polluted with multiple fornication.121

Hrabanus argued that it was therefore better to have the minor ‘scandal’ of marriage with distant kin than more major scandals from stricter prohibitions.122 Hrabanus’ relatively lenient line seems to have been exceptional in the later ninth century,123 but it indicates the practical disagreements that could arise between those who agreed with the principle that relatives should not marry one another. Western exceptionalism There has been much scholarly debate on why the medieval West developed such extreme prohibitions on incestuous marriage. The possible eugenic problems of close kin marriage were occasionally mentioned in the early Middle Ages, as by Gregory the Great, but infant mortality rates may often have been suiciently high to mask any inbreeding efect.124 While exogamy is important in creating new social ties, this does not explain the speciic western extension of the system.125 In particular, Carolingian prohibitions went far beyond Old Testament precedents. 119

120

121 124

125

MGH Conc. 4:12, p. 131. This is repeated by the Council of Worms 868, MGH Conc. 4:25, p. 269, c. 14. Mayke de Jong, ‘To the limits of kinship: Anti-incest legislation in the early medieval west (500– 900)’, in Jan Bremmer (ed.), From Sappho to De Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality (London, 1989), pp. 36–59, at p. 43. On women’s behaviour see Liber historiae Francorum, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 238–328, at pp. 292–3, c. 31; Capitula italica, MGH Cap. i:105, p. 218, c. 13; Concilium Cabillonense 813, MGH Conc. 2:37, p. 279, c. 31. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 29, p. 447. 122 Ibid. 123 Corbet, Autour, pp. 24–8. Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury, Epistola xi:56, c. 5, in Gregory the Great, Registrum epistolarum, ed. Paul Ewald and Ludwig M. Hartmann, 2 vols., MGH Epp. 1–2 (Berlin, 1887–99), Vol. ii, p. 335; Keith Hopkins, ‘Brother–sister marriage in Roman Egypt’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980), 303–54, at pp. 325–7. Fox, Red Lamp, pp. 139–61; de Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, p. 114.

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Marriage Hrabanus Maurus, in his justiications of the restrictions, admitted that ‘human custom’ was involved as well as rules from Leviticus, and his use of Mosaic law as a guide was queried by some of his readers.126 Many scholars have therefore seen ecclesiastical interests as behind medieval regulations. George Duby argued that these formed a way of the church exerting control over marriage,127 while Jack Goody controversially claimed that the church tried to limit the possibilities of marriage to increase the chance of people having no heirs and therefore donating property to the church.128 More recently, David Herlihy has suggested that the church’s aims were to ensure the peace of the household and circulate women between households.129 Mayke de Jong has seen legislation as inspired by deeply held pollution taboos about the separation of the sexual and sacred.130 Régine Le Jan and de Jong have also suggested that the church was trying to weaken kinship groups, by prohibiting marriages that reinforced kin alliances.131 The theories of Goody and Duby have now largely been discredited. Other scholars have pointed out that even if ‘the church’ had been a uniied body capable of producing a consistent self-beneiting policy, its need for oblates as well as donations would prevent it attempting to eliminate heirs.132 Nor is there much evidence that churchmen were particularly anxious to acquire control over marriages: Hincmar, for example, argued speciically that married men, rather than bishops, should judge marital cases.133 Inconsistencies about exactly which relatives were covered, and what should be done with incestuous marriages, also suggest that Carolingian councils were more concerned with the principles involved than with practical control. Herlihy’s theories that churchmen were concerned about household peace are plausible as an explanation for rules against marriage to aines, but he does not explain why ‘the church’ would have wished to prevent the ‘hoarding’ of women.134 Suggestions that reforming churchmen were trying to weaken kinship ties are also problematic. It is not clear in that 126 127

128 129

130 131 132

133

Hrabanus Maurus, Epistolae 29, 31, pp. 445–6, 455. Georges Duby, ‘Le Mariage dans la société du haut moyen âge’, in Il Matrimonio nella società altomedievale, 22–28 aprile 1976, 2 vols., Settimane 24 (Spoleto, 1977),Vol. i, pp. 15–39, at pp. 28–9. Goody, Development, pp. 34–102. David Herlihy, ‘Making sense of incest: Women and the marriage rules of the early Middle Ages’, in Bernard S. Bachrach and David Nicholas (eds.), Law, Custom, and the Social Fabric in Medieval Europe: Essays in Honor of Bryce Lyon, Studies in Medieval Culture 28 (Kalamazoo, 1990), pp. 1–16. De Jong, ‘To the limits’, pp. 49–53. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 315–16; de Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, p. 120. De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 114–15; David d’Avray, ‘Lay kinship solidarity and papal law’, in Staford, Nelson and Martindale, Law, pp. 188–99, at pp. 195–6. De divortio, Responsio 5, 12, pp. 141–2, 182. 134 De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 115–16, 136.

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Incest case why reinforcement of kin ties by other means was allowed, such as using (distant) kin as godparents.135 If there had been such a hidden agenda, one would expect more use of Augustine’s argument that it was wrong to multiply social relationships within one person; however, his statement was rarely quoted.136 The sources provide more support for the idea of pollution taboos as signiicant. A number of passages about incest and incestuous marriage refer to pollution, or closely related concepts such as illness or contagion. Hincmar says approvingly of Count Stephen’s refusal to consummate an incestuous marriage: ‘by saner counsel he provided for the health of the girl, who was not yet made sick, preserving her intact’.137 Patrick Corbet sees such a view of incest as polluting as particularly prevalent after 850, but there are earlier examples.138 In 802, for example, Charlemagne wanted the incestuous, as well as parricides, kept in custody before being brought before him, ‘lest they contaminate the rest of the populus’, and Haito of Basel also referred to the incestuous as ‘polluted’.139 The fact that many discussions of incestuous marriages give no reason for their condemnation may, paradoxically, also support the idea of pollution taboos. Mayke de Jong argues convincingly that changes to marriage rules were not simply imposed by the church on an unwilling laity, as often suggested.140 Instead, they seem to be channelling existing lay concerns, which in principle feared ‘pollution’ and opposed marriage to close kin.141 Asser, for example, commented that Æthelbald’s marriage to his stepmother Judith in 858 was ‘against every custom of the pagans’.142 ‘Pollution’, however, should not be see as a stable or absolute concept. It was not simply an objective fact; intention could be considered in deciding penalties for incestuous marriage.143 The rhetoric of pollution could also be used for sins with no ‘bodily’ aspects: Hincmar of Rheims, in a letter from 859 condemning the behaviour of palace clerics’ followers, proclaims: ‘Woe to that man who, with his heart polluted from 135 136

137

138 139

140 141 142

143

Cf. ibid., p. 119. Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei, ed. Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, 2 vols., CCSL 47–8 (Turnhout, 1955), 15, 16,Vol. i, p. 477; there are passing references to his view in DIL 2:8, col. 183; Council of Douzy 874, MGH Conc. 4:40a, p. 583. Hincmar, Epistola 136, MGH Epp. 8, p. 95: ‘saniore consilio et puellae sanitati, quae necdum inirmata erat, intactam eam servans providit’. Corbet, Autour, pp. 24–6. On Merovingian sources see de Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 136–7. Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 98, c. 37; Capitulary of Haito, MGH Cap. Episc. 1, p. 217, c. 21. See for example Toubert, ‘Carolingian moment’, p. 400. De Jong, ‘To the limits’, pp. 48–9, 52–3. Asser, De rebus gestis Aelfredi, ed.William Henry Stevenson, Asser’s ‘Life of King Alfred’:Together with the ‘Annals of Saint Neots’ Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford, 1959), c. 17, p. 16. See above, p. 260.

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Marriage rapina or another crime does not fear to participate in the secrets of Christ’s mysteries.’144 Even with sexual sins, there was a variable response, as two cases from the 860s make clear. Lothar II’s attempts to divorce Theutberga were based largely on her forced admission of prior incest with her brother, an act described as a ‘contagion’ potentially infecting humans with an ‘incurable plague’;145 Theutberga herself claimed she was ‘unworthy’ of her marriage.146 Yet when Baldwin abducted and subsequently married Charles the Bald’s daughter Judith, no-one brought up the well-known fact that she had previously been successively married to a father and son (Æthelwulf and Æthelbald).147 She clearly carried no lasting pollution from this incestuous marriage. It is also noticeable that Jonas, who shows great concern about sexual pollution, does not make a particular issue of incest.148 His chapter on it is among the shortest of all his chapters on sex and marriage: half the length of his chapter prohibiting divorce, for example.149 Nor are other lay mirrors interested: Paulinus’ Liber exhortationis has a passing mention of incest as one of the sins produced by pride and desire, but Alcuin’s and Dhuoda’s mirrors do not mention the topic.150 The concept of ‘pollution’ thus cannot in itself explain the extreme extent to which incest regulations developed. A number of other factors seem to have come into play. Avoidance of kin-marriage seems to have become one of the deining features of Christian behaviour from the early eighth century.151 This idea may have been reinforced by the alleged championing of the levirate by Clemens, one of the ‘heretics’ whom Boniface encountered.152 The belief that Judas Iscariot had been married to his stepmother was certainly known to Hincmar in the mid ninth century, and possibly also to earlier Carolingian clerics.153 Denunciations of incestuous marriage may also have had a snowball efect, leading to ever-expanding limits of forbidden kin. Ian Wood has suggested that sixth-century Burgundian prohibitions may already have been an attempt to ‘trump’ earlier Frankish legislation.154 Number symbolism may also have played a part in the extension by some writers of prohibitions to the seventh generatio.155 144 146 149 151 152 153

154

Hincmar, Epistola 127, p. 66. 145 De divortio, Responsio 1, pp. 121–2. Ibid., Interrogatio 1, p. 115. 147 AB 858, p. 49. 148 See Chapter 9, pp. 286, 301–2. DIL 2:8, 2:12, cols. 183–4, 188–91. 150 LE 19, col. 211. De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, p. 110. Boniface, Epistola 59, p. 112 claims Clemens preached this. Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 91, citing ‘Ambrose’ (actually Ambrosiaster, Ad Corinthos prima, 5:2; see Ambrosiaster, Ad Corinthos prima, ed. Heinrich Joseph Vogels, Commentarius in Epistulas Paulinas. Pars II: In Epistulas ad Corinthos, CSEL 81–2 (Vienna, 1964), pp. 3–194, at p. 53). Wood, ‘Incest’, p. 297. 155 De Jong, ‘Unsolved riddle’, pp. 116–18.

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Incest Perhaps equally signiicant are the possible advantages of the new rules for some laymen. Robin Fox stresses the general role of endogamy prohibitions in reinforcing the power of fathers and older males over sons and younger males, by making it harder for the next generation to marry.156 In the prevention and detection of incestuous marriages, the local ‘elders’ were given a speciic role by Carolingian rulers and bishops: they were expected to state which marriages were or were not acceptable.The phrase used several times is maiores natu loci: although ‘older’ is the obvious meaning of maiores here, there is the possibility that the ‘greater’ men may also have had a say.157 In a society almost entirely without written genealogies,158 this key role potentially beneited some laymen at most social levels. It is also possible that the expanded political horizons of the nobility in an enlarged Frankish empire made endogamous marriages less attractive than those to more ‘distant’ spouses, in both the kinship and spatial sense. As a comparison, the move of Catalonian counts from a fairly extreme endogamy to marriages no closer than the fourth (‘Germanic’) degree in the tenth century was associated with a move to much wider political connections beyond the Pyrenees.159 The impact of regulation As discussed in the irst chapter, it is diicult to assess the validity of early medieval norms, given the limited evidence.Views on the impact of Carolingian incest regulations, both immediate and longer-lasting, have varied considerably. Patrick Corbet sees some dioceses as less successful in their repression of incest than others, citing a canon from a provincial council in Cologne from 887, complaining of the region ‘being polluted in many ways’ by incest.160 Yet elsewhere in east Francia he sees resolute attempts to enforce the regulations, in contrast to a less active episcopate in late-ninth-century west Francia.161 Even in west Francia, however, the new rules had some impact on elite men. The Council of Douzy in 874 complained about ‘very many men, and particularly those noble in lesh and exalted with temporal honours’, who contracted incestuous 156 157

158

159 161

Fox, Red Lamp, pp. 152–65. Concilium Foroiuliense 796/7, MGH Conc. 2:21, p. 192, c. 8. For an example of this in practice, see Collectio Sangallenses 30, p. 416. The irst extant written genealogy of a non-royal French noble dates from the mid tenth century (Georges Duby, ‘French genealogical literature’, The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), pp. 149–57, at p. 150. Aurell, Noces du comte, pp. 66–8. 160 Cologne 887, Mansi 18a, col. 48, c. 6. Corbet, Autour, pp. 21–49.

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Marriage marriages and then tried to justify them by quoting Gregory the Great’s letter to Augustine of Canterbury.162 Georges Duby, however, has argued for the existence of two entirely diferent concepts of marriage from the Carolingian period onwards, with lay noblemen refusing to accept churchmen’s views on incest.163 Attempts to explore whether early medieval noblemen adhered to incest rules in practice are hampered by the question of whether the evidence we have is ‘typical’. Régine Le Jan argues that marriages in the third degree (by ‘Germanic’ reckoning) ceased to be made after the ninth century, and points out that Robert II’s attempt to contract such a marriage in the eleventh century caused considerable scandal.164 However, in lateninth- and early-tenth-century Catalonia, some counts were practising a very endogamous form of marriage, in which marriages to irst cousins was common, and even an uncle–niece marriage is known.165 Perhaps the most revealing evidence is a comparison of the incestuous marriages known from the Carolingian period with previous eras.166 The Merovingian narrative sources mention several cases of marriage to a wife’s sister (whether or not the sister was deceased);167 there are also cases known of marriage to an uncle’s widow, great-nephew’s widow, stepmother and irst cousin.168 Both Merovingian Francia and preCarolingian Bavaria provide examples of marrying a brother’s widow.169 Boniface had to deal with the proposed marriage of a man to his uncle’s widow. This was seen as a third-degree relationship, but the woman concerned had also formerly been married to her own irst cousin (consobrinus) and abandoned him, and had also abandoned a life as a consecrated woman.170 162 163

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165 166

167 168 169

MGH Conc. 4:40, p. 581. Georges Duby, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, trans. Barbara Bray (New York, 1983), p. 48. On Duby’s ‘models’, see below, pp. 274–7. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 316–26.Anita Guerreau-Jalabert,‘Prohibitions canoniques et stratégies matrimoniales dans l’aristocratie médiévale de la France du Nord’, in Pierre Bonte (ed.), Epouser au plus proche: Inceste, prohibitions et stratégies matrimoniales autour de la Méditerranée, Civilisations et sociétés 89 (Paris, 1994), pp. 293–321 similarly argues for ‘la majeure partie des mariages observables’ respecting the canonical rules in eleventh- and twelfth-century northern France. Constance Brittain Bouchard, ‘Consanguinity and noble marriages in the tenth and eleventh centuries’, Speculum 56 (1981), 268–87; and Corbet, Autour, pp. 318–19 also see a general respect for the rules in tenth- and eleventh-century France and Germany, with only very distant kin being married. Aurell, Noces du comte, pp. 41–8. For the following cases, see Wood, ‘Incest’, pp. 297–302; Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, p. 312; Isabelle Réal,‘Discours multiples, pluralité des pratiques: Séparations, divorces, répudiations, dans l’Europe chrétienne du haut Moyen Age (vie–ixe siècles) d’après les sources normatives et narratives’, in Santinelli, Répudiation, pp. 157–79, at pp. 164–5. Vincomalus, Stephanus, Charibert I, Clothar I. Merovech, Clothar I, Godinus, Childeric II. Clothar I, Duke Grimoald of Bavaria. 170 Boniface, Epistolae 50–1, pp. 83–4, 90.

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Polygamy In contrast to these cases, which concern relatively close relationships or particularly scandalous ones, most ninth-century cases we know of involve more distant relationships. Count Stephen enquired whether he could legitimately marry his iancée, since he had a fourth-degree connection with her from a previous afair with her relative.171 Hincmar, excommunicating Fulcherus and Hardoisa, quoted prohibitions from Gregory II on marriage to one’s irst cousin (consobrina) or to any relative or wife of a relative.172 Solomon II of Constance separated a couple related in the fourth and ifth degree, while in the early 860s Nicholas I conirmed the condemnation by an east Frankish synod of the noble Abbo for marrying a wife related to him in the fourth degree.173 There are also several references to cases involving spiritual kinship.The Council of Mainz in 888 anathematised Altmann for marrying his ‘spiritual comother’, while a letter of Pope John VIII discusses how Bishop Anselm of Limoges had demanded that a man separate from his wife, because he had performed the emergency baptism of his own son.174 Combining this positive evidence of new incest restrictions being applied with the negative evidence for noble marriages to close kin, at least in the Frankish heartlands, suggests that while Carolingian incest provisions may not have removed endogamous marriage entirely, they did discourage its more blatant forms. Polygamy The moral status of polygamy, unlike adultery, had already begun to change before the arrival of Christianity. Polygamy (technically polygyny) had been practised by the ancient Hebrews, but the Greek and Roman ideas of marriage were monogamous, although with some forms of extra-marital sexual relationships by married men tolerated.175 The early Fathers condemned contemporary Jewish polygamy, while inding excuses for God-sanctioned multiple marriages in the Old Testament.176 The Merovingian kings may have practised polygamy, although this is debated,177 but examples are not known from the Carolingian period. Perhaps as a result, it was rare that moralists speciically prohibited the 171 173 174 175

176 177

Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 89. 172 Hincmar, Epistola xxxvi, cols. 255–6. Collectio Sangallenses 30, pp. 415–16; MGH Conc. 4:12, p. 130. Council of Mainz 888, Mansi 18a, col. 69, c. 18; John VIII, Epistola 195, p. 156. Brundage, Law, Sex, pp. 33, 52. Such monogamy is historically unusual: see Walter Scheidel, ‘Monogamy and polygyny in Greece, Rome, and world history’, Version 1.0 (June 2008), Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/ 060807.pdf. Brundage, Law, Sex, pp. 65–6. Wemple, Women, pp. 38–40; Staford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, pp. 73–4.

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Marriage practice.178 The few passing references in texts for lay audiences show that Old Testament precedents made blanket condemnations awkward. Jonas, discussing adultery, includes a passage from Ambrose justifying Abraham’s taking of Hagar as a concubine. Ambrose said this was acceptable since God had not yet condemned adultery and Abraham was motivated only by a desire for children.179 He then adds that now husbands should not have ancillae as concubines because this causes strife within the household: ‘intemperance of this kind dissolves the charity of marriage, makes ancillae proud, matrons wrathful, discordant, stubborn, concubines insolent, husbands shameless’.180 There is an implicit reference here to the domestic strife that Abraham’s actions created, but Jonas and Ambrose do not speciically condemn him.181 Similarly, Hincmar says that that had King David not killed Uriah, he could have legitimately married his widow Bathsheba, since ‘because of the condition of the time, he was not forbidden from having many wives’.182 Dhuoda was happy to praise polygamous patriarchs as ‘chaste’ (castus).183 Against a cultural background of centuries of socially imposed monogamy, it may not have seemed necessary to raise diicult theological issues by querying the morality of the patriarchs. Divorce and re marri ag e Remarriage for widowers in the period rarely seems to have been morally contentious, although there was some limited regulation of the remarriage of widows.184 A few Carolingian bishops also disapproved of repeated remarriage by the widowed.185 Discussions of Carolingian ideas about remarriage after divorce are complicated by the terminology of the sources. Capitularies and councils use a variety of terms, of which separare and dimittere are by far the most common.186 To the dismay of some modern canonists, these terms conlate diferent legal situations, such as a marriage that is null ab initio and one that is initially valid, but subsequently ended. Nor do they say what ‘separation’ means in practical 178 179

180 181 184 185

186

One exception is the Council of Rome 826, MGH Conc. 2:46b, p. 582, c. 37. DIL 2:4, cols. 176–7, quoting Ambrose, De Abraham, i.4.23–4; see Ambrose, De Abraham, ed. Karl Schenkl, Sancti Ambrosii opera. Pars prima, CSEL 32:1 (Vienna, 1897), pp. 501–638, at p. 518. DIL 2:4, col. 177, quoting Ambrose, De Abraham, i.4.26 (p. 520). Genesis 16. 182 De coercendo 14, col. 1028. 183 LM 4:6, p. 144. See Nelson, ‘Wary widow’, pp. 84, 90–3; Kasten, ‘Stepmothers’, pp. 52–4. Kasten, ‘Stepmothers’, pp. 57–8. For a survey of the earlier Christian tradition, see Bernhard Kötting, ‘Die Beurteilung der zweiten Ehe in der Spätantike und im frühen Mittelalter’, in Norbert Kamp and Joachim Wollasch (eds.), Tradition als historische Kraft: Interdisziplinäre Forschungen zur Geschichte des früheren Mittelalters (Berlin, 1982), pp. 43–52. Gérard Fransen, ‘La Rupture du mariage’, Il matrimonio nella società altomedievale, 22–28 aprile 1976, 2 vols., Settimane 24 (Spoleto, 1977),Vol. ii, pp. 604–32, at pp. 612–14.

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Divorce and remarriage terms.187 However, although there are no technical terms distinguishing between separations that preserve the marital bond, and those that dissolve it and permit subsequent remarriage,188 many texts do explicitly state whether remarriage is allowed or forbidden to one or both of the ‘separated’ spouses. I will focus on these cases, since these did have an efect on men’s sexual options. New Testament teaching on divorce was far more restrictive than previous attitudes. Ancient Jewish law always permitted men to initiate divorces, while classical Roman law allowed divorce at the will of either spouse.189 In contrast, Jesus explicitly restricted grounds for separation to (female) adultery, and even in this case was loath to allow remarriage. This position was generally followed by western Church Fathers, although it was occasionally claimed that other cases also merited separation.190 Emperors from Constantine onwards began to introduce some legal restrictions on divorce; these were generally more restrictive on women than men.191 Similarly, barbarian leges allowed divorces to men far more readily than to women,192 although Merovingian formularies include formulae for divorce by mutual agreement.193 Merovingian councils rarely contain prohibitions of divorce, although some earlier Gallic ones had.194 Most penitentials, however, saw marriage as indissoluble.195 As scholars have shown, the trend of Carolingian legislation was consistently towards restricting divorce.196 Legislation from the reign of Pippin III allowed remarriage in a variety of circumstances. The council of Compiègne in 757, for example, allowed this if a stepfather forced his stepdaughter into a marriage against the will of herself and her (blood) 187 188

189 190

191 193 194 195

196

Ibid., p. 627. Jean Gaudemet, ‘“Separare”: Equivoque des mots et faiblesse du droit (iie–xiiie siècle)’, Revue de droit canonique 38 (1988), 8–25. Brundage, Law, Sex, p. 53; Reynolds, Marriage, pp. 44–9. Elizabeth A. Clark,‘Constraining the body, expanding the text:The exegesis of divorce in the later Latin fathers’, in William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (eds.), The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus (Ann Arbor, 1999), pp. 153–71 discusses the complex attempts by patristic writers to reconcile conlicting biblical texts on divorce. On the interpretation of Matthew 19:9 speciically (which allows divorce for ‘unchastity’) see Reynolds, Marriage, pp. 173–212. Gaudemet, Mariage en occident, pp. 78–81. 192 Wemple, Women, pp. 42–3. Gaudemet, Mariage en occident, p. 107. Fransen, ‘Rupture’, pp. 623–4; Réal, Vies de saints, pp. 237–8. Raymund Kottje, ‘Ehe und Eheverständnis in den vorgratianischen Bußbüchern’, in Willy van Hoecke and Andries Welkenhuysen (eds.), Love and Marriage in the Twelfth Century, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series 1, Studia 8 (Leuven, 1981), pp. 8–40, at pp. 26–9. Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Fonay Wemple, ‘Marriage and divorce in the Frankish kingdom’, in Susan Mosher Stuard (ed.), Women in Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 1976), pp. 95–124.

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Marriage relatives;197 if a free man or woman married a slave whom they believed was free;198 for the innocent party of a spouse committing adulterous incest;199 for the spouse of someone who has entered the religious life;200 or for the wife or husband of a leper (with the other partner’s permission).201 Many of these judgements look like responses to speciic cases.202 One particularly detailed case, for example, deals with a lord and his retainer: A Frankish man accepted a beneice from his lord, and took with him his vassallus, and afterwards that lord [the Frankish man] died there, and he [the Frankish man’s lord] sent away that vassallus. And after that, another man received the same beneice, and so that he might be able to hold that vassallus better, he gave to him a wife from the same beneice, and he [the vassallus] had her for some time. And dismissing her, he returned to the relatives of his dead lord and received a wife there and now has her. It is decided that he should have her whom he received afterwards. 203

The council’s decision, that the vassallus should keep the second wife, probably had less to do with any theories of marriage than with safeguarding the rights of families over military dependants in a large-scale empire. A move to take up a beneice elsewhere in the kingdom risked the loss of a man’s retinue to other lords in the event of his sudden death. The ability for the original family to ‘buy back’ a retainer’s support with a subsequent marriage may have made such interregional fortune-seeking less risky. Similarly pragmatic views on divorce are visible in the Decretum Vermeriense, which allows remarriage for a husband whose wife has tried to kill him, or one whose wife has not followed him into exile, and for a wife whose husband has not consummated the marriage.204 In contrast to such wide-ranging permissions for remarriage, however, in 789 Charlemagne announced that a separated husband and wife could not remarry while their previous spouse was still alive.205 This view was repeated by several subsequent assemblies and councils, including the 197 198 200 203

Decretum Compendiense 757, MGH Cap. i:15, p. 38, c. 6. Ibid., c. 7. 199 Ibid., cc. 10–11, 13, 17, 18. Ibid., c. 16. 201 Ibid., c. 19. 202 Hartmann, Die Synoden, p. 75. Decretum Compendiense 757, MGH Cap. i:15, p. 38, c. 9: Homo Francus accepit beneicium de seniore suo, et duxit secum suum vassallum, et postea fuit ibi mortuus ipse senior, et dimisit ibi ipsum vassallum; et post hoc accepit alius homo ipsum beneicium, et pro hoc ut melius potuisset habere illum vassallum, dedit ei mulierem de ipso beneicio, et habuit ipsam aliquo tempore; et, dimissa illa, reversus est ad parentes senioris sui mortui, et accepit ibi uxorem, et modo habet eam. Diinitum est, quod illam quam postea accepit, ipsam habeat.

204 205

Decretum Vermeriense, MGH Cap. i:16, pp. 40–1, cc. 5, 9, 17. Admonitio generalis 789, MGH Cap. i:22, p. 56, c. 43.

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Divorce and remarriage Council of Paris in 829.206 The new condemnations of divorce were based explicitly on New Testament prohibitions, earlier canons and patristic writings: the Admonitio generalis of 789 bases its decision on the ‘African Council’,207 while the Council of Aquileia in 796/7 cited Jerome’s commentary on Jesus’ statement in Matthew 19:9 to justify its prohibition on remarriage even by the husband of an adulteress.208 Jonas, in De institutione laicali, mainly uses scriptural arguments against divorce, but also briely introduces the theme of male and female equality. Men who sufer adversity or illness do not allow their wives to abandon them; similarly they ought to remain with their wives in all circumstances, except in the case of fornication.209 Jonas allows separation in this case, but not remarriage.210 Jonas adds that many laymen resist the explicit statement of Christ prohibiting divorce, and texts from Pippin III’s assemblies allowing divorce were still being cited by Regino at the start of the tenth century.211 The incorporation of prohibitions into secular law, however, suggests at least some acceptance by the magnates. Ninth-century divorce cases show a general acceptance of the principles restricting divorce combined with attempts to circumvent them. The most notorious case is Lothar II’s attempt to divorce Theutberga and marry Waldrada, but other elite males also encountered problems.212 Falcric, a vassus of Lothar I, was excommunicated by Hincmar for remarrying after his wife had entered a convent. When Count Boso’s wife, Ingiltrude, the daughter of Matfrid of Orléans, escaped to Francia with her lover, Popes Benedict III and Nicholas I attempted repeatedly to make her return to her husband.213 In 867, after more than ten years of her absence, Nicholas complained to Louis the German how hard he had worked on the case. The ‘innocent’ Boso, meanwhile, was sufering ‘no little hardship’, since he could neither be reconciled to his wife while she was absent, nor remarry while she was alive. As a result, said the pope, ‘we sufer continual dishonesty [improbitas] and insolence about this matter from the same man, because of course he ardently wants to run into a second, nay, rather illicit, marriage’.214 Despite his eforts to assist Boso, however, Nicholas would not compromise on this point. Instead, he wearily asked Louis to make yet another attempt 206

207

208 209 211 212 213

Concilium Parisiense 829, MGH Conc. 2:50, p. 671, c. 69. Cf. Capitulare missorum item speciale 802, MGH Cap. i:35, p. 103, c. 22. The canon is from the early-ifth-century Registri ecclesiae Carthaginensis, in Concilia Africae a. 345–a. 525, ed. C. Munier, CCSL 149 (Turnhout, 1974), p. 218, c. 102. Concilium Foroiuliense 796/7, MGH Conc. 2:21, pp. 192–3, c. 10. DIL 2:12, cols. 190–1. 210 Ibid., cols. 191–2. Ibid., col. 189; Gaudemet, ‘Lien matrimonial’, pp. 208–9. On this case, see Airlie, ‘Private bodies’. On Falcric and Ingiltrude, see Stone, ‘Bound’. 214 Nicholas I, Epistola 49, p. 333.

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Marriage to force Ingiltrude to return. Several other papal letters demanding that wives return to their husbands may indicate similar problems for other men.215 Carolingian norms on divorce could thus have a heavy impact even on ‘innocent’ men. In a few cases divorce and remarriage remained possible. The enslavement of one spouse was sometimes grounds for the other to divorce them; the Decretum Vermeriense allowed this, except in the case where one spouse had sold him or herself to prevent the other starving, with their consent.216 Jonas complained about ‘some men’ who abandoned wives reduced into slavery ‘by secular law, not the law of Christ’.217 The Council of Tribur in 895 ruled on the case of a freeman who had himself enslaved in order to obtain a divorce; their decision was that his wife should neither be divorced nor reduced into slavery with him, since she had not consented to his enslavement.218 As discussed above, some moralists held that incestuous marriages could be ended and the partners could enter new marriages, or that remarriage was possible in cases of adulterous incest, but there was no consensus.219 The Council of Rome in 826 is unique for the period in allowing a man to remarry if his wife commited ‘fornication’.220 Non-consummation also remained a reason to allow remarriage. Hrabanus Maurus, citing ‘certain statutes’, allowed this if a woman could prove her husband had not slept with her.221 Similarly the Council of Tribur discussed the case of a wife who, when her husband could not have intercourse, slept with his brother. It was decided that the adulterers in this case must do penance, but they were then allowed to marry, although not each other.222 In these cases, nothing is said about the husband remarrying, probably because he was presumed to be impotent and thus had no legitimate reason for marrying, in the moralists’ view. Hincmar, in his detailed discussion of the case of Count Stephen, argued that a man could separate and remarry when a marriage had not been consummated, including cases where unbreakable magical spells had prevented consummation.223 Hincmar, unusually, also produced a 215

216 218 219 220

221 222 223

See for example John VIII, Epistola 154, p. 129; Pope John VIII, Fragmenta 54–5, in Fragmenta registri Iohannis VIII papae, ed. E. Caspar, MGH Epp. 7 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 273–312, at pp. 307–9. Decretum Vermeriense, MGH Cap. i:16, p. 40, c. 6. 217 DIL 2:12, col. 189. Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, p. 247, Canones extravagantes, 2. See above, pp. 259–61. MGH Conc. 2:46, p. 582, c. 36. Reynolds, Marriage, p. 187 sees this view as a survival of the position of the early church. Hrabanus Maurus, Poenitentiale, c. 29, col. 491. Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, p. 207, Iudicia, c. 5. Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 105. On Hincmar’s discussions of impotence magic in this text and in De divortio, see Catherine Rider, Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2006), pp. 31–42.

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Divorce and remarriage theological justiication for allowing remarriage in this case, arguing that a marriage was not sacramental if it had not been consummated.224 This view was contrary to some patristic authors;225 Hincmar therefore had to develop patristic ideas along new lines to justify his conclusions.226 Lothar II tried to use Theutberga’s sterility as grounds for divorce and remarriage, but although this view was seemingly acceptable to some clerics, others irmly opposed it.227 Moralists were aware of possible abuses of the system. Hincmar said that he was ‘often’ approached by wives making false claims about non-consummation, and that husbands were also accustomed to make ‘very shameful’ allegations about their wives.228 Although there is one Merovingian case known where an attempt to end a marriage was made on the grounds that it had been created by raptus, there is no evidence that this approach was tried in the Carolingian period.229 However, in 895 the Council of Tribur ruled against a Frankish noble who, after a long marriage to a Saxon noblewoman, claimed that he was not validly married to her by Frankish law; one version of the acts restates as a general principle that someone married to a ‘foreigner’ (alienigena) by the law of either spouse, with the legitimate consultation of the relatives of both, cannot be separated, except for fornication.230 It is not known on what grounds Louis the Stammerer divorced his irst wife Ansgard;231 the inevitable suspicion arises, however, that Hincmar came up with an ingenious legal argument in this case. Even more leeway was ofered to would-be divorcees by the problem of distinguishing marriage from concubinage. A number of Carolingian texts cite Pope Leo I’s statement to Rusticus of Narbonne from around 458 on how a concubine might be turned into a wife: ‘by the woman being seen to be made free, and legitimately endowed and honoured with public marriage’.232 It was a favourite passage of Hincmar’s, for example, used both in his letter on the marriage of Count Stephen and 224 225

226

227 228 230 231

232

Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 93. Jean Gaudemet, ‘Indissolubilité et consommation du mariage: L’Apport d’Hincmar de Reims’, Revue de droit canonique 30 (1980), 28–40, at pp. 29–32. Gérard Fransen,‘La lettre de Hincmar de Reims au sujet du mariage d’Etienne: Une relecture’, in R. Lievens, E.Van Mingroot and W.Verbeke (eds.), Pascua mediaevalia: Studies voor Prof. Dr J. M. De Smet, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia Series 1, Studia 10 (Leuven, 1983), pp. 133–46, at pp. 140–1 shows (against Gaudemet, ‘Indissolubilité’, pp. 33–6) that Hincmar did not distort his quotations from the Fathers, but did develop arguments beyond theirs. Kottje, ‘Ehe’, pp. 31–2; Airlie, ‘Private bodies’, p. 31. De divortio, Responsio 2, p. 128. 229 Joye, ‘L’Accusation’, pp. 47–9 (Berthegund). Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, pp. 207, 235–6, Iudicia, cc. 4, 39. See Carlrichard Brühl, ‘Hinkmariana II: Hinkmar im Widerstreit von kanonischen Recht und Politik in Ehefragen’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 20 (1964), 55–77. Gaudemet, ‘Indissolubilité’, p. 30.

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Marriage in his discussion of Lothar II’s divorce.233 Yet uncertainties about the matter were still exploited, for example in claims that Waldrada had been legally married to Lothar II.234 Similarly, Falcric successfully made the very dubious claim to Pope Leo IV that his supposed irst marriage had only been a relationship with a concubine.235 Conclusion Carolingian reformers brought a new, more positive vision of marriage to the early medieval world;236 they also demanded practical changes to marriage rules, which afected elite laymen. Scholars have disagreed on the social signiicance of these changed norms and rules. Although Pierre Toubert argued for the ‘lexibility’ of the Carolingian reformers’ model of marriage,237 many scholars have regarded it as being imposed by clerics or rulers on a reluctant laity.238 Georges Duby, in particular, has seen a contrast between secular and ecclesiastical views of marriage as far back as the Carolingian period.239 Are Duby’s ‘two models of marriage’ appropriate for the ninth century?240 Firstly, let us look at the views of clerical reformers.Toubert has spoken of the ‘continuity of intention through almost a century of Carolingian matrimonial policy (c. 740–820)’.241 Yet at irst glance, Carolingian moralising on marriage is often marked by confusion and disagreement in both normative and narrative sources. Successive church councils made contradictory statements on raptus and incestuous marriage. Disputes over the validity of speciic marriages often provoked extended discussions, while interventions by popes in marital cases were often more concerned with papal prestige than theological arguments.242 Hincmar’s 233

234 236 237 238

239 240

241 242

Hincmar, Epistola 136, MGH Epp. 8, p. 92; De divortio, Responsio 4, 21, pp. 134, 222. Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau?, pp. 82–3 lists a number of other Carolingian texts citing this decision. AB 864, p. 70. 235 Leo IV, Epistola 22, p. 599; Stone, ‘Bound’, pp. 471–2. Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, pp. 281–2. Toubert, ‘Carolingian moment’, p. 403. See for example Jean Chélini, L’Aube du moyen âge: Naissance de la chrétienté occidentale. La Vie religieuse des laïcs dans l’Europe carolingienne (750–900) (Paris, 1991), pp. 140–1; Réal, ‘Discours multiples’, p. 178. Duby, Knight, p. 48. On Duby’s ‘models’, see ibid.; Georges Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century France, trans. Elborg Forster, Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History 11 (Baltimore, 1978). Toubert, ‘Carolingian moment’, p. 398. Stone, ‘Invention’; Raymund Kottje, ‘Kirchliches Recht und päpstlicher Autoritätsanspruch: Zu den Auseinandersetzungen über die Ehe Lothars II’, in Hubert Mordek (ed.), Aus Kirche und Reich: Studien zu Theologie, Politik und Recht im Mittelalter. Festschrift für Friedrich Kempf zu seinem fünfundsiebzigsten Geburtstag und fünfzigjährigen Doktorjubiläum (Sigmaringen, 1983), pp. 97–103; Stone, ‘Bound’, p. 470.

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Conclusion views on the validity of Lothar II’s attempts at divorce, meanwhile, could not be separated from questions about the legality of the deposition of his predecessor, Ebbo of Rheims.243 These disagreements, however, were more about the implementation of norms than the norms themselves. Many of the contradictory decisions show a struggle between more rigorous and more lenient responses to marital and sexual ofences.244 Were severe punishments required as deterrents, or would these simply lead to further sins by guilty parties? Such dilemmas were inherently insoluble, and so successive councils could swing between diferent options, such as on the subsequent marriage of a raptor and rapta. Precision was needed in making judgements on marriages, since they had practical efects in terms of property and inheritance. Who counted as kin when avoiding incest? Even those who agreed with the precept of Matthew 19:6, that man should not separate those whom God had joined, might query whether God had joined a particular couple. Hincmar, for example, argued that Count Stephen and his wife had been ‘illegally joined’ and so could be ‘legally and reasonably’ separated.245 Speciic answers were required from inadequate textual sources. Scriptural, patristic and conciliar texts were often inconsistent, and problems were compounded by the lack of clarity of some frequently used texts and the existence of forged texts.246 Carolingian theological discussions did little to remove the confusion, especially since moralists were sometimes trying to provide creative theological justiications for what were essentially cultural or social prohibitions. This is seen at its most extreme in the attempts by Hincmar to denounce raptus, but is also visible in attempts to ind a scriptural basis for periods of marital abstinence and incestuous marriage prohibitions. Hrabanus’ attempts to use Leviticus to justify restrictions on incestuous marriage stirred up controversy, rather than settling it.247 The Carolingian church ‘model’ of marriage always remained rather fuzzy at the edges. What of lay attitudes? There are some hints that attempts at sexual and marital theology were not conined solely to high-ranking clerics. Dhuoda, for example, developed her own distinctive view of the positive qualities of marriage.248 There are also a number of passing references in moral texts to the potential or actual use of ‘incorrect’ theological arguments to justify unsuitable marital or sexual behaviour.249 It is certainly 243 245 246 247 249

De divortio, Interrogatio 2, p. 125. 244 Toubert, ‘L’institution du mariage’, pp. 527–9. Hincmar, Epistola 136, MGH Epp. 8, p. 96. See above, pp. 258, 269. See above, p. 259. 248 Nelson, ‘Monks’, pp. 127–8. See above, pp. 254, 265–6; and below, Chapter 9, pp. 288–9.

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Marriage possible that laymen were independently developing some of these arguments.250 In contrast, such theological counter-arguments are rarely seen in discussions of moral norms on warfare and power. It is more diicult, however, to argue for the existence of a distinctive ‘noble model of marriage’; there is little evidence of consistency in what nobles wanted, beyond advantageous marriages. Martin Aurell, for example, sees Catalan counts as abandoning endogamy and homogamy in their marriages at the end of the tenth century for political rather than religious reasons.251 Raptus might be exploited by some nobles (such as Baldwin of Flanders), even as others deplored it. The endorsement of changed marriage rules in the capitularies implies at least their theoretical acceptance by lay noblemen. In practice too, straightforward deiance of moralists or conciliar decisions was relatively rare (although in the late Carolingian period a woman called Ava, reproached for abandoning her husband by her own priest Folcardus, retaliated by having her relatives castrate him).252 More commonly, the new norms were not challenged or ignored, but instead stretched and bent. Kings and nobles expended considerable energy on trying to ind legal loopholes, for example by claiming that they had never been validly married, or by attempting to manipulate the incest rules. Procedural manipulations are also visible, such as appeals to higher authorities. An incestuous noble couple separated by Solomon II of Constance appealed to his archbishop, and several laymen appealed to the pope.253 A bolder alternative was simply to claim that a successful appeal had already been made. A man trying to marry his uncle’s widow claimed to Boniface that he had papal dispensation for such a marriage.254 A supposed papal letter presented to the synod of Mainz in 861 × 863 by Abbot Grimoald of St Gall, and subsequently denounced as a forgery by Nicholas I, may also have concerned a marriage dispute: that of Abbo’s marriage to a relative in the fourth degree.255 Other laymen repeatedly promised to reform and then reofended: Falcric, for example, was excommunicated and absolved several times,256 while Altmann also returned to a marriage to his ‘spiritual co-mother’ after swearing on oath not to.257 In 893 the Council of Metz excommunicated Lantbert, who having killed his relative and married the widow, Waldrada, had sworn to separate from her, and then returned to the 250 252 253

254 256

Stone, ‘Invention’, pp. 445–6. 251 Aurell, Noces du comte, pp. 80–1. Council of Metz 893, Mansi 18a, col. 80, c. 10. Collectio Sangallensis 30, pp. 415–16. On examples of appeals to the papacy, see Stone, ‘Bound’, p. 470. Boniface, Epistolae 50–1, pp. 83–4, 90. 255 MGH Conc. 4:12, pp. 127, 130. See above, p. 271. 257 Council of Mainz 888, Mansi 18a, col. 69, c. 18.

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Conclusion marriage.258 Some other lay people with marital problems, such as Baldwin; Ingeltrude; and an otherwise unknown Albgis, who abducted another man’s wife in around 852, simply led to diferent jurisdictions.259 Rather than seeing the Carolingian period as having two models of marriage, it may be more useful to consider it as developing one ideal of marriage (as monogamous, exogamous, indissoluble and contracted by the consent of families as well as the couple themselves) largely shared by both the clerical and lay elite, alongside a practice of marriage that adhered somewhat shakily to this ideal. Why were elite laymen prepared to accept, at least in theory, some changes in marital norms, while scheming to avoid the more inconvenient consequences? It may partly have been that the changes made were suiciently limited to be tolerable. For example, the regulations on incestuous marriage seem to have been interpreted in a way that still allowed nobles to wed more distant kin. They may also have been acceptable because they reinforced the power of fathers over sons, a major concern in Carolingian society.The prohibitions on raptus also reinforced paternal power at the expense of young men. What of the attempts to ensure indissoluble marriage? Again, concerns on social stability may have come to the fore. Isabelle Réal and Régine Le Jan have queried whether divorce was common among the Merovingian elite, given the possibly dangerous consequences of repudiating a spouse and her kin.260 Le Jan sees a weakening of horizontal social ties in the Carolingian period as leading to an increase in divorces, which the church then had to combat, but there is little deinite evidence of such weakened ties. Other male-dominated cultures, such as Elizabethan England261 and twentieth-century Ireland, have successfully sustained social systems that ofered extremely limited opportunities for men to divorce and remarry. Given shorter life spans, the loopholes I have already mentioned and possibly the option of murder, it may well have been possible for most Carolingian noblemen to achieve their marital aims without needing to divorce. Decisions on marriage by the elite were already a matter of careful calculation; new prescriptions merely extended this slightly. In return, laymen gained a more positive status for their role as husbands, and a distinctive Christian vocation as married men. The saintly husband appears 258 259

260 261

Council of Metz 893, Mansi 18a, col. 81, c. 11. On Baldwin and Ingiltrude see above, pp. 251, 253, 271. On Albgis, see Council of Mainz 852, MGH Conc. 3:26, pp. 248–9, c. 11. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 278–80; Réal, ‘Discours multiples’, pp. 165–70. Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500–1800 (New Haven, 1995), pp. 110–11.

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Marriage for the irst time at the end of the Carolingian period, in texts such as the Vita Ganguli and the Vita Rictrudis, although martyrdom was still required for such men to be venerated. Even those laymen who did not live such holy lives could still have their marriages recognised as containing a ‘sacred mystery’, provided they were willing to abide by the new demands on how they contracted and sustained such marriages.262 262

Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 105.

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Chapter 9

SEX

Although some Christian norms of sexual behaviour were new, others drew extensively on both classical and Jewish traditions. Jesus in the Gospels said relatively little about personal sexual behaviour. New Testament sexual ethics were developed further in the epistles of Paul and his followers, and a strict code of sexual discipline soon became a key way of showing Christian communities as a ‘holy people’. By the early fourth century a clear contrast between a militantly ascetic view of the church, stressing celibacy, and a society of settled Christian households had developed.1 In the West, the prevailing view valued virginity and continence over marriage, and fourth- and ifth-century patristic writing about sexuality was almost exclusively negative. St Augustine, even as he defended marriage as good, developed a vision of sexuality as an enduring psychological drive, not easily tamed by society.2 Yet as Julia Smith comments on the intellectual resources available to Carolingian writers on gender and sexual behaviour: ‘that heritage was vast, and neither coherent nor consistent’.3 S tudying se xuality While there is a long tradition of historical research on marriage, the history of sexual practices and ideas is a relatively new scholarly ield, developing only in the 1970s.4 The initial interest in researching medieval sexuality had several diferent starting points. One was church history, in which a more academic approach was brought to tracing the western

1 2 4

On early Christian attitudes Brown, Body and Society is fundamental. Ibid., pp. 402–8. 3 Smith, ‘Gender and ideology’, p. 53. James A. Brundage, ‘Preface’, in Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1993), pp. ix–xii; Nelson, ‘Family, gender and sexuality’, pp. 164–8.

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Sex church’s changing attitudes to sexual behaviour.5 Another was the new ields of women’s history and gay history, with historians exploring medieval attitudes to the sexuality of these groups.6 More recently still, scholars of the Middle Ages have begun applying theories on the social construction of sexuality irst developed in studies of the modern and classical worlds.7 Many historical studies of sexual ethics have seen the early medieval period as relatively unimportant.8 There has been less research focused speciically on early medieval Europe and Carolingian Francia;9 the studies that have been carried out have mainly focused on the penitentials’ views of sex,10 and on female sexuality.11 While my work draws extensively on previous research, I focus speciically on restrictions afecting lay male sexual behaviour. My work does not therefore cover some areas that moralists largely saw as concerning women, such as contraception, abortion and infanticide. Nor do I consider clerical celibacy in this chapter, one of the key concerns of the Carolingian reform movement.12 Many studies of Carolingian sexual ethics have made extensive use of penitentials but, as I discuss earlier, there are serious problems with their use as a source for moral norms.13 I have therefore only summarised previous work on penitentials and have focused on sources showing specifically Carolingian moral concerns. The categorisation of sexual behaviour is itself a matter of scholarly debate. Much recent historical scholarship has focused on the social construction of sexuality: the idea that particular sexual acts may not have the same meaning in diferent cultures. For example, classical Roman thought did not place all sexual acts between two men into a category 5

6 7

8 9

10 11 12

See for example John Bugge, Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal, International Archives of the History of Ideas, series minor 17 (The Hague, 1975); Brundage, Law, Sex; Brown, Body and Society. For examples of older, more confessionally inspired works, see for example Henry C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, 3rd edn, 2 vols. (London, 1907); Derrick Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London, 1955). See for example Boswell, Christianity; Wemple, Women. Some of the most inluential books are: Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York, 1978); Butler, Gender Trouble; Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley, 1990). Their inluence can be seen, for example, in many of the papers in Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken and James A. Schultz (eds.), Constructing Medieval Sexuality, Medieval Cultures 11 (Minneapolis, 1997). See for example Brundage, Law, Sex. One recent exception is Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell’alto medioevo, Settimane 53 (Spoleto, 2006), but the paper by Paolo Cammarosano on the Carolingian period in this volume is disappointingly unspeciic. See for example Payer, Sex; Lutterbach, Sexualität. See for example Wemple, Women; Heene, Legacy. I touch on the topic briely in Chapter 10, pp. 325–30. 13 See Chapter 2, pp. 34–5.

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Studying sexuality equivalent to the modern ‘homosexual’ sex.14 Although there is now a scholarly consensus that sexuality is constructed, there remains controversy over whether or not ‘sexual identities’ existed in premodern times, in the sense of people being categorised (or categorising themselves) on the basis of their sexual behaviour. Ruth Mazo Karras, however, has made a convincing argument that certain sexual identities did exist in the Middle Ages, such as ‘prostitution’ and ‘chastity’.15 If medieval and modern categories of sexual acts and identities do not coincide, this raises issues about the terminology that should be used. Some scholars have argued that the terms ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ should not be used for the medieval period; others still see the terms as useful.16 One possible alternative is John Boswell’s use of the terms ‘gay’ (contrasted with ‘nongay’), which he deined as ‘those whose erotic interest is predominantly directed toward their own gender’.17 However, while such a deinition is historically valid (we have no evidence of societies in which such people are absent), its practical usefulness is limited, since we very rarely have the evidence to determine the ‘erotic interest’ of any medieval individual. In this book, when discussing Carolingian views, I have therefore used ‘homosexual’ and ‘heterosexual’, but only as adjectives to refer to speciically sexual acts. In general, I have preferred to use categories based on the terms and distinctions that Carolingian texts use for sexual activities and behaviours. Some problems still remain; Boswell points out that Boniface refers to some people practising heterosexual intercourse as being ‘like the people of Sodom’.18 Similarly, loose usage and confusion of terms such as adulterium and fornicatio are visible in sources from classical Roman times to the later medieval period.19 Alcuin, for example, describes fornicatio as ‘all uncleanliness of the body … This fornication happens through carnal 14 15

16

17

18 19

Parker, ‘Myth’, p. 314. Ruth Mazo Karras, ‘Prostitution and the question of sexual identity in medieval Europe’, Journal of Women’s History 11 (1999), 159–77; Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others (New York, 2005), pp. 57–8. Contrast for example the papers by Burns and Schultz in Lochrie, McCracken and Schultz, Constructing Medieval Sexuality. John Boswell, ‘Revolutions, universals, and sexual categories’, in Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey (eds.), Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York, 1989), pp. 17–35, at p. 35. This was a reinement of his earlier deinition in Boswell, Christianity, p. 43, of ‘persons who are conscious of erotic preference for their own gender’. Boswell, Christianity, pp. 202–3, citing Boniface, Epistola 73 (p. 151). James A. Brundage, ‘Carnal delight: Canonistic theories of sexuality’, in Stephan Kuttner and Kenneth Pennington (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Salamanca, 21–25 September 1976, Monumenta iuris canonici, Subsidia 6 (Vatican City, 1980), pp. 361–85, at p. 374.

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Sex mixing with whatever woman, or whatever uncleanliness in fulilling the ardour of lust.’20 However, a tentative classiication is possible, based on the distinction between the married and unmarried, fundamental to most Carolingian thinking on lay sexual behaviour. This chapter will therefore deal with the sexual behaviour of unmarried men, marital sex, extramarital sex and ‘unnatural’ sexual behaviour. Unmarri e d me n New Testament sexual ethics difered from both Roman and Jewish tradition in seeing all sexual activity outside marriage for both sexes as wrong.21 Such restrictions on male behaviour have always proved diicult to maintain in patriarchal societies. Double standards, in which female sexual activity outside marriage is condemned and punished, while similar behaviour by men is condoned, have been commonplace for millennia.22 These double standards have sometimes been seen as typical of Carolingian attitudes.23 Other scholars, however, have seen Carolingian sexual moralising as notable for its ‘extreme equality’.24 The penitentials support the idea of double standards, since they devote relatively little emphasis to sexual behaviour that does not afect social structures, such as unmarried heterosexual intercourse and prostitution.25 Other evidence conirms that young men’s sexual activity was often tolerated. The St Vaast annalist’s description of Louis III’s death in 882, fatally injured when chasing a girl, ‘because he was young’ implies such behaviour was regarded as typical.26 Many Carolingian princes kept concubines before they were married,27 and premarital sex also seems to have been common among nobles. Count Stephen reported sleeping with a girl ‘in the fragility of youthful age, as is usual’, and Falcric, a vassus of Lothar I, claimed to have kept a concubine before his marriage.28 Pope Leo I’s letter to Rusticius of Narbonne that explained how a man with a concubine could either discard her and marry, or turn his concubine into a wife, was repeated frequently in Carolingian texts.29 Both Charlemagne 20

21 22

23 25 27 28

29

DVV 29, pp. 30–1: ‘Fornicatio est omnis corporalis inmunditia … Quae fornicatio it per conmixtionem carnis cum femina qualibet, uel etiam ali[a] quacumque immundicia ad [explendum] libidinis ardorem.’ Brundage, Law, Sex, pp. 60–1. Lerner, Creation of Patriarchy, pp. 113–16; Keith Thomas, ‘The double standard’, Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959), 195–216. Wemple, Women, pp. 83, 93–4. 24 Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, p. 258. Payer, Sex, pp. 36–8. 26 AV 882, p. 52. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 275–7. Hincmar, Epistola 136, MGH Epp. 8, p. 89: ‘Ut adsolet … in fragili iuventutis aetate’. On Stephen and Falcric see Chapter 8, pp. 271–4; and Stone, ‘Bound’. See Chapter 8, p. 273.

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Unmarried men and Lothar I kept concubines in their old age, when widowers; it is not known whether noblemen also did this.30 Indeed, the keeping of concubines by unmarried men seems to have been generally accepted. The Council of Mainz in 852 repeated the view of the irst Council of Toledo from 400 that unmarried men with one concubine should not be excluded from communion, unlike married men with concubines.31 The social pressures on young men to be chaste before marriage were clearly less strong than for young women: Jonas quotes Augustine’s claims that men are ‘more glorious’ than women if they remain chaste before marriage, since they are not constrained by family or law to remain ‘pure’.32 There were some limits to this double standard, however. Although some authors have seen concubinage as bringing social ruin to girls,33 there are hints in the sources that loss of virginity was not necessarily disastrous. For example, the Council of Pavia in 850 complained about fathers keeping their daughters unmarried for too long in order to obtain advantageous marriages, ‘as a result of which it often happens that they are corrupted in the paternal home [paterna domus] itself ’. The proposed penalty – that if they did later make a legitimate marriage, they should not receive a nuptial blessing – implies that such women had not lost all their marriageability.34 As Nira GradowiczPancer has pointed out, Salic law did not see sexual purity as essential for female honour.35 Moreover, alongside a general acceptance of male unchastity, some voices were also heard arguing for sexual restraint by unmarried men. A sermon from around 802, probably intended as a model for preaching, demanded that young men should avoid ‘fornication’.36 The mirrors of Jonas, Alcuin and Dhuoda also insist that young men should be chaste. Dhuoda stresses the sacred nature of marriage, but warns William to avoid fornication and prostitutes (mulier meretrix).37 Alcuin sees chastity as something that should be learned in youth and taught by fathers to sons.38 Jonas is, as usual, most detailed and forceful. Laymen are led into corruption not only by sexual desire, but also because they 30 31

32 33 34 35

36

VK 18, pp. 22–3; AB 853, p. 43. Council of Mainz 852, MGH Conc. 3:26, p. 250, c. 15 (quoting Canon 17 of the Council of Toledo). Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau?, pp. 84–5 discusses this canon’s reception by Carolingian law collections and penitentials. DIL 2:2, col. 171, quoting Augustine, Sermo 132:2, cols. 735–6. Wemple, Women, pp. 90–4; Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau?, pp. 246–7. MGH Conc. 3:23, p. 224, c. 9. Nira Gradowicz-Pancer, ‘Honneur féminin et pureté sexuelle: Equation ou paradoxe?’, in Michel Rouche (ed.), Mariage et sexualité au Moyen Age: Accord ou crise? Colloque international de Conques (Paris, 2000), p. 51. See Chapter 6, p. 205. 37 LM 4:6, p. 142. 38 DVV 18, cols. 626–7.

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Sex postpone marriage while waiting to obtain secular honores.39 If they want a virgin wife, they should be virgins themselves.40 Nor can they excuse themselves by saying they are not committing adultery if they are not sleeping with married women, but only prostitutes or their own ancillae.41 A similar approach is taken in Waltharius, where Walter is shown as capable of sexual restraint in unusually tempting circumstances (he is travelling alone for several months with his beautiful iancée). Walter is described by the author as a ‘praiseworthy hero’, suggesting that such restraint was unusual.42 Alcuin, however, was keen to insist that such behaviour was appropriate for all men: ‘Let no-one say he is not able to keep himself from fornication. For faithful is God, says the blessed Apostle, who does not permit us to be tempted beyond that which we are able to bear: but will also make provision with temptation.’43 Alcuin’s citing of 1 Corinthians 10:13 in the context of sexual immorality suggests that he at least had a more hopeful view of sexual self-control than St Paul, who felt it was ‘better to marry than burn’.44 Unmarried noble laymen are clearly something of an anomaly in Carolingian thought. Their state is often seen as transitory, for men awaiting the age and resources to marry.45 The layman who remained unmarried was relatively rare: Dhuoda’s praise of virginity as an option for William did not prevent her expecting him to marry and have children.46 Yet there is no sign of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, in the sense of pressures on laymen to be sexually active, or implied criticism if they were not. Carolingian authors do not celebrate male saints, such as Saint Alexis, who are forced to lee their homes in order to avoid marriage.47 Instead, men such as Benedict of Aniane and Datus are shown embracing the religious life from disillusionment with warfare and associated forms of reckless male behaviour.48 Opinion seems to have been divided on how men who were unmarried should behave. Custom, and some oicial church decisions, allowed them considerable licence. A number of moralists, however, including the laywoman Dhuoda, wanted such young men to remain chaste until marriage.

39 42 45 46 47

48

DIL 2:2, col. 170. 40 Ibid., col. 171. 41 See Chapter 6, pp. 184–5. Waltharius, 426–7. 43 DVV 18, col. 627. 44 1 Corinthians 7:9. See Smith, ‘Einhard’, pp. 63–6 on the unusually prolonged ‘youth’ of Einhard. LM dedicatory verse, 4:6, pp. 44, 144. This story is the subject of an early-twelfth-century French poem: see Emma Campbell, ‘Separating the saints from the boys: Sainthood and masculinity in the French Vie de Saint Alexis’, French Studies 57 (2003), 447–62. VB 2, p. 201; on Datus see Chapter 3, p. 70.

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Marital sex Marital sex Early Christian writers developed a code of behaviour and sexual discipline for couples that drew partially on Jewish and Stoic ideas. As well as expecting married men to be faithful to their wives, they also tried to regulate sexual relations within marriage. The approaches difered: some patristic writers wanted to limit the times at which couples could have intercourse, and insisted that the ritual impurity from any sexual act must be cleansed.49 Others focused on intentions, arguing that marital intercourse was allowed only for procreation, and that the admitting of any lust into the act was sinful.50 Augustine, however, while seeing sexual desire as inevitably disordered, also developed the idea of the ‘marital debt’, the right of one spouse to demand intercourse from the other.51 This regulation of marital sexuality continued in the early Middle Ages. Although Agobard explicitly blames Judith’s adultery on Louis the Pious’ failure to render the ‘marital debt’, other Carolingian moralists did not take up the idea or develop a theology of compulsory marital sex, as later canonists did.52 Instead, when reformers quoted 1 Corinthians 7:3 on the ‘debt’ husbands and wives owed each other, they used this only to stress the need for marital idelity, and to argue against divorce.53 Much of the practical regulation of married men’s sexual behaviour came from the penitentials, which laid out an elaborate scheme of periods of marital abstinence, while also regulating other aspects, such as acceptable positions.54 The forbidden periods in the penitentials related both to physiology (for example menstruation and pregnancy) and to the liturgical calendar. Such prohibitions drew from a wide range of sources: Old Testament regulations, Stoic philosophy, patristic teachings and also popular religious notions of ‘impurity’.55 Although the penitentials varied greatly in their speciic details, by the eighth century intercourse was prohibited on so many days that the fecundity of couples may have been seriously afected if they adhered to the rules.56 In contrast, there is relatively little emphasis on the need for periodic abstinence in other types of Carolingian texts. Most of the lay mirrors say little: Dhuoda and Paulinus do not mention the topic, 49 51 52 53

54

55

Brundage, Law, Sex, pp. 67, 81. 50 Ibid., pp. 89–93; Brown, Body and Society, pp. 132–3. Brundage, Law, Sex, p. 93. Ibid., p. 198; Agobard, Liber apologeticus i:2, p. 309. See for example DIL 2:4, 2:6, cols. 175, 179; Wulfad of Bourges, Epistola 27, p. 191; Hincmar, Epistola 135, p. 82; Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 29, p. 447. Jean-Louis Flandrin, Un temps pour embrasser: Aux origines de la morale sexuelle occidentale (VIe–xIe siècles) (Paris, 1983); James A. Brundage, ‘Let me count the ways: Canonists and theologians contemplate coital positions’, Journal of Medieval History 10 (1984), 81–93, at pp. 82–3. Flandrin, Un temps, pp. 72–127. 56 Ibid., pp. 41–71.

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Sex while Alcuin makes only the general comment: ‘He who has a legitimate wife, let him use her legitimately, at suitable times.’57 Jonas, however, clearly sees the topic as important and stresses the need to observe the ‘times for joining and not joining with wives’.58 Men should avoid intercourse on the Tobias days (the irst three days of marriage); before receiving communion; and with pregnant, menstruating or breast-feeding wives.59 He also sees men as needing to be puriied after intercourse.60 Jonas argues for these restrictions in the context of his wider attempts to regulate and limit sexual activity. Following the Church Fathers, he stresses that even in marriage, sex is intended for procreation rather than enjoyment.61 Those who do indulge in intercourse should take care to displease God as little as possible.62 He goes so far as to endorse Jerome’s harsh view: the husband who loves his wife excessively is an adulterer.63 Jonas’ arguments for restricted times of intercourse relect this emphasis on procreation and avoiding desire. Sex during pregnancy can only be for the sake of lust.64 Intercourse during a woman’s period is banned by Leviticus and, according to Jerome and ‘Augustine’, produces deformed children.65 Washing after intercourse and then refraining from entering holy places is an Old Testament puriication ritual that should be understood symbolically as involving clearing the mind from sexual desire before approaching the sacred.66 Jonas sometimes uses the language of pollution, for example when he quotes Ambrose on not sleeping with a pregnant wife: ‘But also men spare neither those conceived nor the Lord: they contaminate these, they exasperate this one … He [God] works and you pollute [incestas] the secret of the womb with lust [libido].’67 Unlike the penitentials, however, Jonas’ focus is on abstinence around particular events rather than liturgical dates. The few Carolingian capitularies and council acts that mention marital abstinence make only limited demands. The Council of Aquileia of 796/7 demands abstinence on Sundays, and a capitulary from 813 wants 57 59 60 62 63

64 65

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DVV 18, col. 627. 58 DIL 2:3, col. 172. DIL 2:2, 2:7, 2:10, 2:11 (β version), 2:18, cols. 171, 182–3, 186–7, 188. Ibid. 2:11, col. 188. 61 Ibid. 2:1, 2:6, cols. 168–9, 179–82. Ibid. 2:1 (β version), col. 170. Ibid. 2:7, col. 183, quoting Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, i:49; see Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, PL 23, cols. 205–338, at col. 281. DIL 2:7, cols. 182–3. Ibid. 2:10, col. 186, citing Jerome, Commentarium in Hiezechielem, vi.18.5–9 (p. 235); and ‘Augustine’ (actually Caesarius of Arles, Sermo 44:7 (Vol. i., p. 199)). DIL 2:11, col. 188. Ibid. 2:7, col. 182, quoting Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, i:44; see Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, ed. M. Adriaen, Sancti Ambrosii Mediolanensis opera. Pars IV, CCSL 14 (Turnhout, 1957), pp. 1–400, at p. 28.

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Marital sex this extended to all holy days;68 in contrast, the Council of Châlons in 813 and the Council of Ingelheim in 829 call for abstinence only before taking communion.69 The one council to go further is the Council of Paris in 829, heavily inluenced by Jonas. This demanded abstinence from pregnant wives, but made no mention of the other restrictions on the times of intercourse from De institutione laicali.70 While some episcopal capitularies simply repeated the prohibitions on sex on Sundays and before communion, others added extra prohibitions. Theodulf of Orléans demanded abstinence on Saturday nights, Sundays and in Lent;71 Radulf of Bourges in Lent and before communion.72 The ‘Sermonary of Salzburg’, composed in Bavaria in the early ninth century, includes a sermon urging men to abstain in Lent not only from their concubines, but also their own wives.73 Carolingian decisions on penitential practice are also worth noting. The penitentials implied, and sometimes explicitly stated, that penance itself involved marital continence.74 Carolingian moralists and councils, however, were sometimes willing to allow penitents to marry or to remain with their wives in order to avoid their falling into further sin. For example, although a number of sources demand life-long sexual abstinence for certain classes of homicides,75 the Council of Mainz of 861 × 863 allowed marriage to those guilty of patricide or fratricide, ‘lest they fall into the pit of fornication’, and this decision was repeated by the Council of Worms in 868.76 Lay views Unlike the authors of the penitentials, most Carolingian reformers were thus surprisingly reluctant to regulate marital sex. The same reluctance is visible in the few speciic cases known. For example, according to 68

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72 73 75

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Concilium Foroiuliense 796/7, MGH Conc. 2:21, p. 194, c. 13; Capitulare generale Caroli Magni 813, ed. Hubert Mordek and Gerhard Schmitz, ‘Neue Kapitularien und Kapitulariensammlungen’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 43 (1987), 361–439, at p. 416, c. 7. Concilium Cabillonense 813, MGH Conc. 2:37, p. 283, c. 46; Concilium Ingelheimense 829, MGH Conc. 2:45, p. 552, c. 10. Episcoporum ad Hludowicum imperatorem relatio 829, MGH Conc. 2:50, p. 671, c. 69. First capitulary of Theodulf, MGH Cap. episc. 1, pp. 139–40, c. 43; Second capitulary of Theodulf, MGH Cap. episc. 1, pp. 152–3, c. i:9. Radulf of Bourges, Capitula, p. 256, cc. 28–9. McCune, ‘Edition’, p. 70. 74 Flandrin, Un temps, pp. 219–20. See for example Paulinus, Epistola 16, p. 522 (murder of wife); Concilium et capitulae de clericorum percussoribus, MGH Cap. i:176, p. 361, c. 4 (deliberate killing of bishop); Concilium Moguntinum 847, MGH Conc. 3:14, p. 171, c. 20 (parricides). Council of Mainz 861 × 863, MGH Conc. 4:12, p. 131; Council of Worms 868, MGH Conc. 4:25, pp. 268–9, c. 13.

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Sex Hincmar in De divortio, a noble Frankish woman called Northild complained to Louis the Pious at the synod of Attigny in 822 about ‘certain shameful acts’ (quaedam inhonesta) between herself and her husband Agenbert. Louis sent her to the synod of bishops, who in turn sent her to the judgement of the laity and married men, saying that they should deal with such matters.77 The decision of the laymen, not surprisingly, was in favour of Agenbert. Ecclesiastical acceptance of a lay decision in this case may have been partly about the political needs for reconciliation at the time of Attigny, but it is not an isolated example. Hincmar cited the case to justify his view that a secular court, and not a church council, should judge Theutberga. He also mentions how a man sufering from impotence with his wife went to the bishop only after two years: ‘since he had not been able to ind other counsel about it, he rushed there, forced by necessity’.78 Hincmar argued that the dispute between Count Raymund and Stephen over Stephen’s marriage should have been settled between themselves, rather than brought to a synod.79 Jonas’ mirror certainly suggests that some laymen were actively hostile to churchmen’s attempts to alter their sexual behaviour. At several points in De institutione laicali, he states that some laymen contend particular condemned practices are allowable.They do not just disobey the church’s moral code, but actively oppose it. By far the most frequent of these counter-arguments concern married men’s sexual behaviour; in contrast only a few objections to non-sexual moral norms are mentioned in the text.80 For example, Jonas writes: There are very many [plerique] leading a married life, who take care to distinguish very modestly between the times of uniting and not uniting with wives; also there are those who not only reject having the mode of this discretion, nay rather they are accustomed shamelessly to oppose themselves to those censuring and contradicting. Our wives, they say, are joined to us by law; if we use them at our will, when and how we want, we do not sin. But we are made answerable for a greater crime, if we abstain from embracing wives and we do not beget sons, whom we should have begotten.81

In the longer (β) version of De institutione laicali, some laymen go even further. When Jonas says that married men should not have intercourse with pregnant wives he adds: ‘when they are admonished about copulation of this kind, they should not loosen mouths to immoderate laughter, but rather convert themselves to correction and contrition and penitence 77 78 80

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De divortio, Responsio 5, pp. 141–2; Nelson, ‘England iv’, pp. 20–1. De divortio, Responsio 15, p. 205. 79 Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 88. See for example DIL 1:20 (laws of God apply to both clerics and laity), 2:23 (prohibiting dicing), 3:6 (condemning gluttony), cols. 161, 217–18, 244. Ibid. 2:3, col. 172.

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Adultery of the heart’.82 Jonas also shows lay hostility to reformers’ teaching that sex should only be for procreation,83 that one should not sleep with one’s wife when she is menstruating or breastfeeding,84 and to prohibitions on divorce.85 Some scholars have argued from the penitentials that church campaigns to regulate times of intercourse achieved some success by the eighth and ninth centuries. Jean-Louis Flandrin, indeed, sees the very lack of preaching about the issue in the period as proof that married couples generally accepted the regulations.86 Jonas’ comments, however, suggest that some men remained obdurate about their marital freedom: one of his chapter headings is entitled ‘Against the shameless men who say, since genitalia are created by the very wise creator God, why should mutual desire [ardor] be endured, rather than pleasure [libido] be exercised at the will of each individual?’87 Most Carolingian moralists, though, did not share Jonas’ determination to convince sceptical laymen that they should alter their behaviour in the marriage bed. Adulte ry Christianity brought an important change to the deinition of adultery. In Old Testament, Roman and early barbarian law, adultery was largely an ofence by married women; the wife’s lover was the only guilty male party. A married man sleeping with an unmarried woman might be guilty of another ofence, depending on the status of the woman, but not adultery.88 In contrast, Jesus’ teaching on divorce made some remarriages adulterous, and St Paul condemned all sexual relationships outside marriage. Most patristic writers followed the New Testament lead in rejecting double standards for men and women on adultery.89 Caesarius of Arles, in particular, insisted that a married man could not have a concubine.90 82

83 85 86

87 89 90

Ibid. 2:7, col. 182 note: ‘Et quod cum super hujuscemodi concubitu admonentur, non ad cachinnationem ora dissolvere, sed magis ad correctionem, et ad contritionem et poenitudinem cordis se debeant convertere.’ Ibid. 2:6, col. 179. 84 Ibid. 2:10; 2:11 (β version), cols. 186, 187–8 note. Ibid. 2:12, col. 189. Flandrin, Un temps, pp. 143–53. Cf. Rob Meens,‘Magic and the early medieval world view’, in Hill and Swan, Community, pp. 285–95, at p. 293: ‘the taboo on having sexual intercourse during forbidden periods was already embedded so deeply that a deliberate transgression of it was thought to have magical efects’. DIL 2:9, col. 184. 88 Brundage, Law, Sex, pp. 30–1, 55, 132. Ibid., p. 61; Reynolds, Marriage, pp. 122–6. Michael M. Sheehan, ‘Sexuality, marriage, celibacy, and the family in central and northern Italy: Christian legal and moral guides in the early Middle Ages’, in David I. Kertzer and Richard P. Saller (eds.), The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present (New Haven, 1991), pp. 168–83, at pp. 176–7.

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Sex Carolingian authors, like earlier ones, used adulterium in a variety of senses; Jonas, for example, quotes Jerome’s view that a man loving his wife excessively is an adulterer.91 The term also had an important symbolic role, frequently used as part of a discourse of public disorder. Charlemagne in 802 wanted oicials who would not conceal ‘thieves and robbers and homicides, adulterers, evildoers and enchanters or female soothsayers [incantatores vel auguriatrices] and all the sacrilegious’.92 Lothar I in 846 included ‘adultery’ as one of the ‘public sins’ that bishops had to punish with public penance, in order to propitiate God’s wrath before going to war with the Saracens.93 Charles the Bald in 857 had his missi announce that each priest must make a list of malefactors in his parish, ‘that is, raptores, the rapacious, adulterers, the incestuous, homicides and bandits’.94 Such symbolic crimes were a standard way of criticising rulers. The Frankish bishops who opposed Louis the Pious in 833 claimed that his campaigns had been marked by ‘innumerable’ ofences of homicide, perjury, sacrilege, adultery, pillage and burning.95 Similar claims were made about the armies of the Breton ruler Nomenoe in 850, and Louis the German’s men in 875.96 Adultery in the speciic sense of extramarital intercourse was also treated seriously, but double standards are often visible, with most concern about wives betraying husbands. Capitularies allowed a man to leave a lord who had committed adultery with his wife,97 while Albgis, who publicly abducted Patrichus’ wife around 852, was seen as ‘defaming the church of Christ’ by his action in taking her among the newly Christianised Moravians.98 Secular laws punished married adulteresses and their lovers harshly: both might be killed.99 In contrast, adultery by laymen received relatively light penances in the penitentials.100 While Hrabanus Maurus said that both a married man and a woman who committed ‘adultery’ should do penance for seven years, the Council of Worms in 868 had this penance for an adulteress or a man who ‘seized another man’s wife’.101 It is therefore possible that a married man’s intercourse with an unmarried woman was once 91 93 94 95

96

97 99 101

See above, p. 286. 92 Capitulare missorum generale 802, MGH Cap. i:33, p. 96, c. 25. Hlotharii capitulare de expeditione contra Saracenos facienda 846, MGH Cap. ii:203, p. 66, c. 6. Allocutio missi cuiusdam divionensis 857, MGH Cap. ii:267, p. 292, c. 8. Episcoporum de poenitentia, quam Hludowicus imperator professus est, relatio Compendiensis 833, MGH Cap. ii:197, p. 55, c. 6. Council of Anjou (?)850, MGH Conc. 3:20, p. 204; Synodus Pontigonensis 876, MGH Cap. ii:279e, p. 350. See Chapter 6, p. 194. 98 Council of Mainz 852, MGH Conc. 3:26, pp. 248–9, c. 11. See Chapter 6, pp. 202–5. 100 Payer, Sex, pp. 20–3, 132–3. Hrabanus Maurus, Poenitentiale, c. 21, cols. 487–8, quoting Council of Ancyra, c. 17; Council of Worms 868, MGH Conc. 4:28a, p. 279, c. 39.

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Adultery again being excluded from the meaning of ‘adultery’.102 Andrea Esmyol sees Charlemagne as a ‘chronic adulterer’, keeping concubines during his marriages, (although the dating of his relationships and establishing whether they were marriages or not is diicult).103 Capitularies and councils, however, show that adultery was not always seen solely as an ofence of married women and their lovers. Married men and women were both penalised for adulterous incest (intercourse with relatives by marriage).104 The statement of the irst council of Toledo that a married man could not have a concubine was frequently repeated by Carolingian authors.105 Hincmar argued in the cases of Count Stephen and Lothar II that even a man in a marriage subsequently found to be invalid must do penance for any extramarital intercourse during its duration.106 If there was no consistency on the punishment for adultery or the meaning of the term, it is perhaps not surprising that views also differed on whether a pair of adulterers could marry after the death of the innocent spouse. The Council of Meaux–Paris in 845–6 allowed this after penance, provided the spouse was not murdered and there was no other impediment to the marriage.107 Hincmar allowed the possibility of Lothar II marrying Waldrada, with whom he had committed adultery, if Lothar’s wife Theutberga died, or was proved to be ‘dead in spirit’ because of incest.108 The Council of Tribur in 895, however, speciically prohibited a man marrying a woman with whom he had previously committed adultery, and banned those who had produced children in an adulterous relationship from cohabiting or any private contact.109 Most of the lay mirrors mention adultery only in passing: Dhuoda, for example, does not worry particularly about her young son’s attraction to other men’s wives, in contrast to St Augustine’s mother, Monica.110 Jonas, however, gives a detailed account of the need for married men to be faithful to their wives and not take concubines. His argument, drawing on St Paul and the Fathers, is largely based on equality between husband and wife. Husbands should not commit adultery, if they do not want their wives to. It is wrong to demand a higher moral standard from women than men.111 Yet Jonas was aware that he was ighting against 102 105

106 107 109 110

Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau?, p. 92. 103 Ibid., pp. 148–51. 104 See Chapter 6, pp. 257, 260. See for example Capitula cum Italiae episcopis deliberata, MGH Cap. i:96, p. 202, c. 5; Council of Rome 826, MGH Conc. 2:46b, p. 582, c. 37; Episcoporum ad Hludowicum imperatorem relatio 829, MGH Cap. ii:196, p. 45, c. 54; Council of Mainz 852, MGH Conc. 3:26, p. 250, c. 15. Hincmar, Epistola 136, p. 105; De divortio, Interrogatio 20, p. 219. MGH Conc. 3:11, p. 117, c. 69. 108 De divortio, Responsio 21, pp. 220–6. Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, pp. 236–7, 240–1, cc. 40, 49, 51. LM 4:6, pp. 142–4. On Monica see Shaw, ‘Family’, pp. 30–1. 111 DIL 2:4, col. 177.

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Sex social conventions and contemporary law. He condemns men’s excuses that they are only sleeping with their own ancillae or with prostitutes, and adds: ‘Let no one latter himself about human laws: all stuprum is adultery … the same chastity is owed by the husband as by the wife.’112 All this suggests that although Carolingian laymen had no problem in recognising female adultery as an attack on married men’s rights, it was uphill work to persuade them that a married man’s adultery was also wrong. ‘Unnatural’ se x Sexual activities involving two men have historically been categorised in variable ways in the West. Classical culture distinguished between active and passive sexual roles more than object choice: male–male sexual activity was referred to diferently depending on the particular actions perpetrated or ‘sufered’.113 Christian writers, in contrast, rarely maintained this distinction.114 Peter Damian developed the concept of sodomy (sodomia) in the eleventh century, although the sodomite as a distinctive category of person is already visible in Odo of Cluny’s work.115 Similarly, the term ‘homosexuality’ is a nineteenth-century invention, developed as part of a speciic discourse classifying and essentialising sexual identities.116 Carolingian sources use a variety of terms for (male) homosexual activity. There are a number of references to Sodom, yet texts also sometimes equate some forms of heterosexual intercourse with ‘sodomite’ behaviour.117 The most frequent term for male–male sexual activity saw this as part of a wider category: those who acted ‘unnaturally’. Hincmar described the ‘sodomitical sin’ as one that a man committed by ‘a shameful act against nature with either a male or a female’.118 Hrabanus’ penitential linked together men who coupled with animals or males as ‘fornicating irrationally’.119 The exact boundaries of such ‘unnatural’ behaviour were disputed territory. Alcuin saw the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 as God punishing homosexual activity, but the Flood in Genesis 6 as punishment for 112

113 114 115

116 117 119

Ibid., quoting Ambrose, De Abraham, i.4.25, p. 519. Stuprum in Roman law was ‘habitual sexual intercourse with an unmarried, free woman’ (Brundage, Law, Sex, p. 29), but it is not clear whether Ambrose is using this speciic deinition. Holt N. Parker, ‘The teratogenic grid’, in Hallett and Skinner, Roman Sexualities, pp. 47–65. Payer, Sex, pp. 135–6. Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago, 1997), p. 29; Christopher A. Jones, ‘Monastic identity and sodomitic danger in the Occupatio by Odo of Cluny’, Speculum 82 (2007), 1–53, at pp. 3–4. Foucault, History of Sexuality 1, pp. 42–3. See above, p. 281. 118 De divortio, Responsio 12, p. 181. Hrabanus Maurus, Poenitentium liber ad Otgarium, c. 6, col. 1408.

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‘Unnatural’ sex heterosexual sin (although the Bible does not speciically link the Flood to any sexual misdemeanours).120 In contrast, the Council of Paris in 829 saw both of these as examples of God’s punishment for sins ‘against nature’. They also included in this category a story in Judges 19–20, in which the murderous rape of a concubine led to the revenge killing of more than 40,000 Benjamites by their fellow Israelites.121 Nor was there always more clarity at the individual level. Hincmar complained of people ‘who add that it is not a sodomitical sin, unless one fornicates within the body, that is obscenely in a member of the bodily part, namely inside the belly.They abuse badly and improperly the Apostolic witness: “Every sin whatever that a person should do is outside his body, but he who fornicates sins in his body.”’122 In what follows, I shall therefore concentrate on male homosexual activity and bestiality, while remaining aware that other sexual sins might also be considered ‘unnatural’. While Roman ethics saw some forms of male homosexual behaviour as acceptable and even laudable,123 and did not prohibit bestiality,124 the Old Testament condemned both men ‘lying’ with men and bestiality.125 The New Testament also condemned homosexual acts;126 patristic thought and early councils severely penalised both homosexual acts and bestiality.127 Yet male Christian authors from late antiquity onwards also wrote poetry and letters celebrating their love for men.128 John Boswell’s claim that homosexual activity was generally tolerated in the eighth to tenth centuries129 is not supported by the penitentials, which devote considerable attention to various forms of male and female homosexual contact and penalise some acts severely.130 Although the penalties for bestiality in the penitentials were often less severe than those

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125 127 128

129

M. R. Godden, ‘The trouble with Sodom: Literary responses to biblical sexuality’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 77 (1995), 97–119, at pp. 99–100. Concilium Parisiense 829, MGH Conc. 2:50, pp. 634, 669, cc. 34, 69. De divortio, Responsio 12, p. 179: ‘qui asstruunt non esse scelus sodomitanum, nisi quando intra corpus, id est in membro obscene partis corporeae, videlicet intra aqualiculum, fornicatur, male et inproprie testimonio abutentes apostoli [1 Corinthians 6:18]: Omne peccatum quodcumque fecerit homo, extra corpus est: qui autem fornicatur, in corpus suum peccat.’ Amy Richlin, ‘Not before homosexuality: The materiality of the cinaedus and the Roman law against love between men’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1993), 523–573, at p. 525. Joyce E. Salisbury,‘Bestiality in the Middle Ages’, in Joyce E. Salisbury (ed.), Sex in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, Garland Medieval Casebooks 3 (New York, 1991), pp. 173–86, at pp. 173–4. Boswell, Christianity, pp. 100, 154. 126 Bailey, Homosexuality, pp. 37–41. Ibid., pp. 82–91. Boswell, Christianity, pp. 133–4, 186–93. I will not discuss such texts further, both because they seem to have been written largely for a clerical or monastic audience and also because of the extreme diiculty in deciding whether or not they are ‘erotic’. Ibid., pp. 169–206. 130 Payer, Sex, pp. 40–4; Frantzen, Before the Closet, pp. 149–63.

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Sex for homosexual activities, they were increased from the seventh century onwards.131 Moralists in other genres also irmly condemned such behaviour. Alcuin used his comparison of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom to argue that God punishes ‘natural’ sexual sin (men with women) less than that against nature, since the earth was restored after the lood, while Sodom remained barren.132 Charlemagne in 789 demanded severe penance on those (men) sinning ‘against nature with beasts or males’, citing a mistranslated section of the Council of Ancyra in 314.133 Such penance was necessary to ensure such behaviour did not become a ‘custom’. According to the Capitulare missorum generale of 802, rumours that some monks were sodomites caused ‘the greatest sadness and disturbance’.134 Charlemagne threatened extreme punishment on future perpetrators and those who failed to correct them. As Mayke de Jong comments: ‘The wording of the Capitulary suggests that this was a reaction against a very particular and local scandal, which nonetheless threatened to afect the whole of the realm.’135 A similar pattern is visible later in the ninth century, with intermittent moments when an apocalyptic view of ‘unnatural sins’ surfaced in public discourse. For example, in the mid 820s, the Visio Wettini (in both Heito’s and Walahfrid’s versions) expresses great concerns. The dreamer Wetti is warned that no sin ofends God more than that ‘against nature’.This term encompasses both ‘sleeping with males’ and also (unspeciied) forms of sexual activity between spouses.136 The angel leading Wetti in his vision ‘again and again told him about the sodomitical sin … ive times or more repeated it should be avoided’.137 Such emphasis may relect a particular concern about the behaviour of monks, since the discussion comes as part of a longer section largely concerned with monastic sins.138 Shortly afterwards, the Council of Paris saw ‘pollution with males and animals’ as one of the sins particularly arousing God’s anger and the reason why ‘the people are scourged with famine and pestilence, and the status of the church is weakened, and the kingdom is endangered’.139 The 131 133

134 135

136 137 138

Payer, Sex, pp. 44–6; Salisbury, ‘Bestiality’, pp. 176–9. 132 See above, pp. 292–3. Admonitio generalis 789, MGH Cap. i:22, p. 57, c. 49: ‘qui cum quadrupedibus vel masculis contra naturam peccant’. Bailey, Homosexuality, pp. 86–9: the Greek original probably refers only to bestiality. MGH Cap. i:33, pp. 94–5, c. 17. Mayke de Jong, ‘Imitatio morum: The cloister and clerical purity in the Carolingian world’, in Michael Frassetto (ed.), Medieval Purity and Piety: Essays on Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious Reform, Garland Medieval Casebooks 19 (New York, 1998), pp. 49–80, at pp. 53–4. Heitonis visio Wettini, MGH Poet. iii, pp. 272–3, c. 19; Visio Wettini, 640–55. Heitonis visio Wettini, MGH Poet. iii, p. 274, c. 24. Visio Wettini, 635–784. 139 Concilium Parisiense 829, MGH Conc. 2:50, p. 669, c. 69.

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‘Unnatural’ sex bishops complained that some priests were using penitentials to justify relatively short penance for these sins, and demanded that they instead follow the canons of the Council of Ancyra, which imposed at least sixteen years of penance.140 In 862 the Council of Pîtres–Soissons similarly saw Viking raids as a punishment for ‘the ire of avarice and rapacity and envy and adulteries and other unclean acts, not only in the natural sex, but also the sex that is against nature’.141 Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés also saw ‘unnatural’ behaviour as one among the sins leading to Francia’s suferings in the 890s.142 Yet these condemnations of sodomy were not translated into practical demands for investigation of ofences, as happened with incestuous marriages. Actual allegations of homosexual or bestial acts were also rare. In 846 a man was burnt alive for intercourse with a mare; this happened in Lent, which may have been seen as an aggravating factor.143 Speciic cases may also have lain behind a question to Hrabanus Maurus about penances for fornicating with a bitch or frequent fornication with cows.144 There are no speciic Carolingian cases involving homosexual acts known, though some of heterosexual ‘sodomy’. Lothar II’s wife Theutberga supposedly confessed to ‘sodomitical’ intercourse with her brother;145 Northild’s complaint in 822 of ‘certain shameful acts’ by her husband may have involved heterosexual anal intercourse, or may instead have been a breach of other regulations on times and places of marital sex.146 It is possible that a memory of this case may lie behind the suggestion to Wetti, a few years later, that husbands and wives could behave ‘unnaturally’ together. Even in Wetti’s vision of hell, he is not actually shown those who have committed ‘unnatural sins’.147 Many other Carolingian sources simply ignore sins of this kind. Alcuin makes the passing remark: ‘all unclean behaviours [inmunditiae] displease God, and particularly those that are not natural’,148 but the other mirrors do not refer to such acts. It is particularly interesting that Jonas, the moralist who has most to say about sexual sins, says nothing about them. Divergent discussions The speciically Carolingian evidence conirms that Boswell was wrong in seeing the early medieval period as one that ‘tolerated’ homosexual activity, but does support his view of ‘the relative uninterest of Frankish 140 143 146

Ibid., p. 63, c. 34. 141 MGH Conc. 4:10, p. 98, c. 1. 142 Abbo ii:603–4. AB 846, p. 34. 144 Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 41, p. 480. 145 AB 860, p. 53. See above, p. 288. 147 Visio Wettini, 310–524. 148 DVV 18, col. 626.

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Sex synods and rulers in this issue’.149 The responses to ‘unnatural’ sexual practices show a noticeable divergence between genres. Penitentials imply that such acts were suiciently common to need detailed discussion, but do not always impose extreme penances.150 Some penitentials also suggest a ‘community identity’ of ofenders deined by their homosexual sins.151 In contrast, councils and capitularies, along with other moral texts, see sins ‘against nature’ as exceptionally wicked, and seemingly open to any person, but have only intermittent and non-speciic references to such practices. There is also an intriguing gap in Carolingian discourses: there is very little use of allegations of ‘unnatural’ male sexual behaviour as a political weapon against opponents. This contrasts sharply with both classical and later medieval practice,152 and also with the increasing political use from the 830s of allegations of adultery with the queen.153 The one exception is the allegations against Theutberga’s brother Hubert, but even here the claims of anal intercourse may have been partly intended to sidestep the question of whether Lothar knew Theutberga was not a virgin at the time of their marriage.154 These divergent reactions to same-sex activity are probably the result of complex cultural changes in the post-Roman world. Classical and late antique denunciations of men involved in homosexual activity relied on identifying such deviants by other means, whether by recognising the signs of efeminate men (often presumed to be sexually passive),155 or via the discernment of evil inside them by a gifted monastic leader.156 The classical discourse of efeminacy does not seem to have survived into early medieval Francia, at least in secular society. For example, there is no Frankish legislation on sexual insults against men.157 A change is also visible in monastic discourses. As Albrecht Diem argues, the early western monastic tradition abandoned a late antique theology of the monk as a sexual being, who must ight constantly against 149 150 152

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154 156

157

Boswell, Christianity, p. 179. Frantzen, Before the Closet, pp. 175–82. 151 Ibid., pp. 163–7, 174. See for example Anthony Corbeill, ‘Dining deviants in Roman political invective’, in Hallett and Skinner, Roman Sexualities, pp. 99–128; Leyser, ‘Cities’; Mathew S. Kueler, ‘Male friendship and the suspicion of sodomy in twelfth-century France’, in Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack (eds.), Gender and Diference in the Middle Ages, Medieval Cultures 32 (Minneapolis, 2003), pp. 146–81. See Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, ‘La Reine adultère’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 35 (1992), 299–312. See De divortio, Responsio 12, p. 182. 155 Corbeill, ‘Dining deviants’, pp. 110–23. Albrecht Diem, ‘Organisierte Keuschheit: Sexualprävention im Mönchtum der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters’, Invertito 3 (2001), 8–37, at p. 26. On such insults in Norse culture see Sørensen, Unmanly Man; on gender-speciic insults in Salic law, see Halsall, Warfare and Society, p. 11.

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‘Unnatural’ sex desires of all kinds. Instead, with the development of oblation, chastity became an institutional rather than an individual concern, and the monk was seen as an asexual being.158 Among the institutional techniques for ensuring chastity that Diem mentions, such as communal dormitories,159 the penitentials should probably be included, which developed irst as a monastic tool, and are marked by a particular awareness of homosexual acts involving boys.160 As a result, Carolingian monastic texts do not include the detailed relections on sodomy that earlier and later ones do. Christopher Jones argues for the existence of ‘a substantial discourse of sodomitic sin developed as a matter of routine in same-sex monastic communities’ in the early medieval period, which remained largely in oral form until articulated by Odo of Cluny and Peter Damian. He does not explain, however, why, if monastic communities ‘had the greatest means and opportunity to amass a rhetorical arsenal against sodomy’, they used this in tenthcentury texts, but not eighth-century ones.161 It seems more likely that the similarities he sees between Odo’s poem Occupatio and Peter Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus arise from common sources.162 Carolingian moralists inherited alarming fears about ‘sodomites’, as displayed in the rumours of 802, without obvious ways of recognising who they were. To encourage the seeking-out of cases, or to have public trials, might therefore be to create ‘scandal’ rather than remove it. Alan Bray showed that in Renaissance England, in order to use homosexual allegations against political rivals, a discourse had to be developed to identify particular male relationships as suspicious and outside the norm.163 Otherwise, all forms of homosocial behaviour might become suspect, making elite social life impossible. Carolingian political rivals seem not to have developed such a weapon; perhaps rulers discouraged this. Such politically motivated allegations, after all, are precisely what we see in the post-Carolingian period. In the tenth century, sodomy claims became a useful tool for the demonisation of Muslims.164 Rather of Verona reports married clerics in the late tenth century claiming that clerics who do not keep women must be sinning with men;165 this looks like a rhetorical tactic to counter reformers’ demands for clerical celibacy. Peter Damian located sodomy outside 158 160 162 163

164 165

Diem, ‘Organisierte Keuschheit’, pp. 33–5. 159 Ibid., pp. 9–15. Frantzen, Before the Closet, pp. 156–62. 161 Jones, ‘Monastic identity’, pp. 51–3. Ibid., pp. 47–8 discusses the parallels in imagery, which he accepts have ‘piecemeal’ antecedents. Alan Bray, ‘Homosexuality and the signs of male friendship in Elizabethan England’, History Workshop 29 (1990), 1–19. See Jordan, Invention, pp. 11–28. Ross Balzaretti, ‘Men and sex in tenth-century Italy’, in Hadley, Masculinity, pp. 143–59, at p. 150.

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Sex his circle of monks and hermits, as a problem of secular clerics;166 he also claimed that sodomite clergy could be recognised by their moral and mental confusion.167 By the twelfth century, accusations of sodomy against the secular nobility could be a useful way of delecting anxiety about clerical and monastic misdeeds; it was also a handy allegation against individual political opponents, as Orderic Vitalis’ attacks on William Rufus show.168 Alan Bray comments on Renaissance England: ‘Homosexuality had a potentially disruptive efect, but it was held in check and successfully resolved.’169 The same was largely true in the Carolingian period, although with diferent tactics. There were periodic occasions of nearpanic about unnatural behaviour, but little sign of persistent concern about it, as with incestuous marriage and raptus. Homosexual behaviour and bestiality were grave concerns to Carolingian reformers, but only rarely urgent ones. Carol ing i an sexual di scour se s Much research has focused on the discourses surrounding sexual behaviour. Michel Foucault claimed that ‘The Middle Ages had organised around the theme of the lesh and the practice of penance a discourse that was markedly unitary’, a discourse that he saw as centring on matrimonial relations.170 More recent studies by specialists, however, have stressed the number of diferent discourses about sex in the central Middle Ages.171 For the Carolingian period, my study conirms Pierre Payer’s view that the ‘penitential tradition’ and ninth-century texts on sexual matters (councils, capitularies, lay mirrors and the like) were substantially separate.172 Studies of the penitentials have stressed the signiicance of sexual sins: many penitentials have more than 25 per cent of their canons dealing with sexual matters.173 This has led some scholars to claim that early medieval moralists were obsessed with sex.174 The penitential tradition is relatively consistent in its sexual content and treatment, and also static: there was little ‘creative elaboration’ of the sexual material from the mid eighth century.175

166 167 169 171

172 174

Jones, ‘Monastic identity’, p. 46. Leyser, ‘Cities’, pp. 206–8. 168 Kueler, ‘Male friendship’, pp. 162–4. Bray, Homosexuality, p. 79. 170 Foucault, History of Sexuality 1, pp. 33, 37. John W. Baldwin, The Language of Sex: Five Voices from Northern France around 1200 (Chicago, 1994); Karras, Sexuality, p. 3. Payer, Sex, p. 116. 173 Ibid., pp. 52–3; Frantzen, Before the Closet, p. 183. See for example Brundage, ‘Let me count’, pp. 81, 88–9. 175 Payer, Sex, p. 116.

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Carolingian sexual discourses Scholars have also seen penitentials as marked by an emphasis on pollution and ‘cultic purity’.176 Payer comments on them as having ‘played a major role in giving literary currency to an underlying belief in the uncleanliness of sexual intercourse’.177 Penitentials seem to be the main carriers of concerns about marital sexuality (especially in creating speciic periods of sexual abstinence) and also show a great interest in homosexual sins, but are less concerned about some other sexual sins.178 Payer’s claim that there was a ‘failure of the society [early medieval West] to provide parallel relective critical discussion of human sexuality’ is not borne out by my study.179 Individual authors had difering views on the most signiicant sexual sins: Hrabanus Maurus argued that adultery was more serious than incestuous marriage, but Theodulf did not discuss incest at all.180 While Theodulf devoted a substantial section of his second episcopal statute to ‘unnatural’ sexual activity, Jonas discussed only heterosexual sex.181 Yet beyond these individual diferences, there is a speciically Carolingian view of sexual and marital behaviour visible in moral texts for laymen, which contrasts in many ways with the penitential tradition. Firstly, Carolingian reformers were more concerned about marriage than sexual behaviour. Raptus, incestuous marriage and divorce were frequently condemned, and there was considerable concern to enforce these rules.182 In contrast, there were relatively few regulations on marital sex, while ‘unnatural’ sexual behaviour was denounced iercely, but intermittently. Fornication and adultery occupied a middle position, being repeatedly condemned in general terms, but with few speciic measures taken against perpetrators. These priorities are already visible in the Admonitio generalis of 789. Its many clauses include a declaration that separated couples cannot remarry, a demand for ‘hard and severe penance’ for bestiality and homosexual acts, prohibitions on marrying another’s iancée and on ‘unjust marriages’ (iniusta connubia) and a call for priests to preach on the need for chastity and continence, and the avoidance of fornication and ‘impurity’ (inmunditia).183 Most Carolingian authors were not obsessed with sex.This is particularly clear in the lay mirrors:Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis and Dhuoda’s Liber manualis make sexual morality only a minor part of their works.184 Paulinus’ Liber exhortationis has almost nothing about sex, and is far more concerned about 176

177 180 181 182 184

See for example Flandrin, Un temps, p. 81; Lutterbach, Sexuälitat; Meens, ‘Historiography’, pp. 82–4. Payer, Sex, p. 118. 178 See above, p. 282. 179 Payer, Sex, p. 121. Fleury, Recherches, pp. 233, 240. Second capitulary of Theodulf, MGH Cap. episc. 1, pp. 164–8, c. vii:1–11. See Chapter 8, pp. 250–74. 183 MGH Cap. i:22, pp. 52–62, cc. 43, 49, 51, 68, 82. DVV 18, 29, cols. 626–7, pp. 30–1; LM 4:6, pp. 142–4.

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Sex other bodily desires, like eating and drinking.185 When Paulinus talks about ‘living according to the lesh’, he describes it in general terms as following one’s own will, not focusing on sexual desire.186 Even Jonas, in De institutione laicali, when speciically asked to write about how married men can please God, has less than a ifth of his work about sex and marriage (thirteen out of sixty-nine chapters).187 Similarly, although marriage is an important topic of capitularies and conciliar decrees, a relatively small proportion of these texts are concerned with the sexual behaviour of laymen.188 Nor is sexual misconduct prioritised above other sins. Alcuin may see fornication as leading to ‘blindness of the mind, inconstancy of the eyes or immoderate love of the whole body; often peril of life, lewdness, jokes, petulance and all incontinence, hatred of the mandates of God, weakness of the mind and unjust desires, negligence of the future life and delight of the present’,189 but this pales in comparison to the disasters caused by avarice: ‘envy, theft, banditry, homicide, lies, perjury, pillaging, violence, restlessness, unjust judgements, contempt of truth, forgetfulness of future blessedness, hardness of heart’.190 Most Carolingian moral texts written for a lay audience, with the exception of De institutione laicali, do not show any particular hatred or fear of sexual activity. Nor do they make systematic attempts to limit the opportunities for sexual intercourse. There are relatively few mentions of the need for marital abstinence, and remarriage of the widowed is also accepted. Sexual sins are often mentioned in times of social disorder. However, they are not the privileged sign of such disorder, but only one among many manifestations.191 Nithard, for example, does not blame the many problems of the early 840s on sexual immorality.192 Nor are sexual sins the only ones calling down disaster on the people, as in some modern Christian discourses. To Carolingian moralists, if the Vikings were burning cities and churches, it was as much the fault of Frankish hearts burning with avarice as with lust.193 Pollution and scandal The sexual norms revealed in Carolingian texts for lay noblemen cannot be itted simply into a model focused on pollution taboos. Reformers 185 186 189

190

191

See for example LE 36, 37, cols. 234–9. Ibid. 17, col. 210. 187 Book ii, Chapters 1–13. 188 Hartmann, Die Synoden, p. 444. DVV 29, pp. 30–1: ‘caecitas mentis, inconstantia oculorum uel totius corporis amor immoderatus; uitae saepe periculum, lasciu[i]a, ioca, petulantia et omnis incontinentia; odium mandatorum Dei, mentis eneruatio, et iniustae cupiditates, negligentia uitae futurae, et praesentis delectatio’. Ibid. 30, pp. 31–2: ‘inuidiae, furta, latrocinia, homicidia, mendacia, periuria, rapinae, uiolentiae, inquietudo, iniusta iudicia, contemptus ueritatis, futurae beatitudinis obliuio, obduratio cordis’. See above, p. 290. 192 Leja, ‘Making of men’, pp. 26–7. 193 See above, p. 295.

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Carolingian sexual discourses showed considerable concern to prevent raptus and divorce, for example, which did not involve cultic purity concerns. Concerns about pollution, however, do seem to have played an important role in three aspects of sexual regulation: prohibitions on incestuous marriage, ‘unnatural’ sexual behaviour and the limited attempts to control sex within marriage. Yet Hubertus Lutterbach’s binary model of medieval sexuality, contrasting an Old Testament and early medieval ‘pre-ethical’ concern for cultic purity with an ethic of intention found in New Testament and patristic sources, is too simplistic.194 Firstly, as already discussed, ‘pollution’ was not a stable concept, but socially constructed.195 Carolingian society had far fewer food taboos than the ancient Israelites, but an expanded circle of relatives one might not marry. Although penitentials have often been seen as emphasising cultic purity,196 they do not have the same apocalyptic fear of sodomy as impure that is found in other Carolingian texts. Indeed, the Council of Paris in 829 speciically complained that some priests were using penitentials to justify relatively short penance for such sins.197 Nor do late antique and Carolingian moral texts neatly separate out ‘ethical’ and ‘cultic’ justiications of sexual regulations. Two quotations in Jonas’ De instutione laicali, for example, show the complex intertwining of diferent types of arguments. In his chapter demanding that a husband should not sleep with his wife during her period, Jonas cites Jerome’s commentary on a verse in Ezekiel praising men who do not approach menstruating women. Jerome explains this passage by claiming that sex during menstruation leads to deformed children, and ends:‘Let a husband therefore beware lest he should force his wife, thinking she ought to be subject to the desire of marriage at all times.’198 Here an Old Testament pollution taboo is joined to a medical claim to buttress Jerome’s hostility to all sexual acts. In the next chapter, on abstinence after a woman has given birth, Jonas cites Gregory the Great, in his Libellus responsionum to Augustine of Canterbury, arguing for a spiritual interpretation of Old Testament purity regulations as concerning intentions.199 Gregory rejects the idea that a menstruating woman must not enter church, but nevertheless forbids her to have intercourse during her period. He even states that Mosaic law prescribed the death penalty for such intercourse.200 If Gregory (and

194 195 198

199

Lutterbach, Sexuälitat, pp. 16–19. See Chapter 8, pp. 263–4. 196 See above, p. 285. 197 See above, pp. 294–5. DIL 2:10, cols. 186–7, citing Jerome, Commentarium in Hiezechielem, vi.18 (pp. 235–6) on Ezekiel 18:6. DIL 2:11, col. 188. 200 Gregory, Epistola xi:56, c. 8, p. 339, citing Leviticus 20:18.

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Sex Jonas) think a menstruating woman can enter church, their ban on sex during menstruation is unlikely to be because they see her as ‘unclean’. Instead, this seems another example of an instrumental use of Old Testament regulations to limit non-procreative sexual intercourse. Similarly, Lutterbach correctly argues that early medieval authors saw sodomy and bestiality as polluting because these actions were thought of as contrary to the order of creation.201 Yet this view derives not only from the Old Testament, but also St Paul’s deinition of homosexual acts as being ‘against nature’.202 One of the most signiicant conciliar canons on bestiality, from the Council of Ancyra in 314, already uses the language of pollution.203 Rather than attempting to explain Carolingian sexual ethics in terms of monolithic concerns about ‘pollution’, it is more useful to consider the functions of speciic and coherent complexes of pollution discourse. As Mary Douglas, whose work is fundamental on the topic of pollution, says in Purity and Danger: ‘any piecemeal interpretation of the pollution rules of another culture is bound to fail. For the only way in which pollution ideas make sense is in reference to a total structure of thought.’204 The three relatively coherent discourses of pollution visible in Carolingian sources, around marital sex, incestuous marriage and ‘unnatural’ practices, appear to have had diferent functions. Most concerns about marital sex (apart from Jonas’ views) focus on the demand to avoid sex on Sundays and holy days. This is clearly part of a wider Carolingian concern to keep the sacred and secular apart, whether by preventing lay people from approaching too close to the altar, or banning monks from attending placita. The fact that the prohibited periods for sex expanded so vastly in the early Middle Ages suggests that marital intercourse was being used as exemplary for all secular life; banning sex in Lent was possible, unlike, say, banning all agricultural work. As already discussed, taboos on incestuous marriage seem to have become entangled in the eighth century with deinitions of who was a Christian. Against the background of Boniface’s mission, concepts of pollution may have been useful in reinforcing the boundaries between Christianity and ‘paganism’.205 In contrast, taboos around homosexual acts and bestiality do not seem to have been intended as a way of

201 204

205

Lutterbach, Sexuälitat, p. 150. 202 Romans 11:26–7. 203 Lutterbach, Sexuälitat, p. 149. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 2002), p. 51. This edition includes a preface discussing how some of her views have altered since the book’s original publication. See Chapter 8, p. 264.

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Carolingian sexual discourses strengthening external boundaries at this period. It is only later that such acts were claimed to be typical of Saracens or heretics.206 Instead, it is useful to consider two of the other ways in which Mary Douglas has suggested that pollution taboos can be used to reinforce a society’s morality. Concepts of pollution can be used to provoke moral indignation about an act, or, where moral indignation exists but there are no practical sanctions, pollution beliefs can provide a deterrent to wrongdoers.207 The Carolingian church had inherited from early Christianity strong prohibitions on both homosexual activity and bestiality, but it is not clear that all of Frankish society necessarily saw these sins as particularly heinous;Theodulf of Orléans prescribed lighter penances for those who were unaware such practices were sinful.208 Policing such ‘unnatural’ acts was also intrinsically diicult, with less likelihood of suspicion arising than with illicit heterosexual liaisons. Claims of God’s wrath arising from such practices may have been the only efective method of checking such sins. Another noticeable feature of Carolingian priorities on sexual and marital afairs is their frequent concentration on public ofence. One of the worst accusations made about some marital and sexual misdemeanours, such as the dispute over Count Stephen’s marriage or Albgis’ abduction of another man’s wife, was that they had caused ‘scandal’. In contrast, there was a seeming reluctance to intervene within an existing marriage except in exceptional circumstances, as the case of Northild shows.209 The concept of ofences as ‘public’, however, was not necessarily ixed, but often actively created. Mayke de Jong sees incest deined as a public ofence because of its polluting aspect,210 but the boundaries of what was considered an incestuous marriage expanded greatly in the period. Even though ‘unnatural’ sexual acts were also seen as polluting, and as potentially endangering the whole community, they were not among the public crimes that bishops and counts were expected to seek out and punish. Instead, the main focus was on enforcing severe secret penance for such acts. Nor did this concern to avoid ‘scandal’ mean that Carolingian sexual moralising simply reinforced existing social practices or followed an earlier agenda. Some Carolingian moralists also condemned socially 206 207 208 209

See above, p. 297 on Saracens; and, on heretics, Boswell, Christianity, pp. 283–6. Douglas, Purity and Danger, p. 165. Second capitulary of Theodulf, MGH Cap. episc. 1, pp. 166–7, c. vii:8. See above, pp. 288, 290. 210 De Jong, ‘What was public?’, pp. 898–901.

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Sex acceptable acts, such as unmarried men fornicating and the killing of adulterous wives by husbands. Mascul inity and sex Sexual norms that vary according to gender have been a near constant in western history: the ‘double standard’ has a long and continuing history. Yet other gendered expectations of sexual behaviour have seen major shifts. It was a ‘medical’ commonplace in the early Middle Ages that women were naturally more sexually voracious; Isidore of Seville claimed that the word femina was derived from ‘iery force’, because females lust more than males.211 This view, which endured from classical to early modern times, was reversed in the eighteenth century.212 Instead, a common sentiment in modern western culture is that sexual restraint is either unmanly or unnatural for men, and that ‘real’ men should be sexually active (the ‘male sex drive’ discourse).213 The most important distinction in early medieval sexual norms was not between the sexes, but between the laity and religious. Gregory II, for example, allowed the married man whose wife could not ‘fulil her wifely duty’ because of illness to remarry, although saying that continence would be better.214 In the same letter, however, he forbids male and female child oblates to leave the monastery and marry when they reach adulthood: ‘since it is a crime [nefas] for restraints on desire to be relaxed for children [ilii] ofered by their parents to God’.215 The early Middle Ages increasingly saw monks as asexual beings, while the chastity of early medieval male saints is shown in hagiography as a given more than as a major achievement.216 This did not mean that monks ceased to be considered as men, as the Carolingian rhetoric of ‘manly’ behaviour shows.217 For lay people, Carolingian sexual regulations do provide some support for Pierre Toubert’s idea of ‘extreme equality’.218 While some aspects of the double standard survived, particularly the toleration of sexual activities by young unmarried men, and harsh punishment of adulteresses, there were serious attempts to enforce equivalent chastity on both sexes. 211 212 213

214 215 216 218

Isidore, Etymologiae xi.ii.24, quoted in Smith, ‘Gender and ideology’, p. 56. Fletcher, Gender, pp. 392–4. Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell, Men in Perspective: Practice, Power and Ideology (London, 1995), p. 61. Boniface, Epistola 26, p. 45. Ibid., p. 46. Cf. Council of Worms 868, MGH Conc. 4:28a, pp. 272–3, c. 20. See above, p. 284; and Karras, Sexuality, p. 41. 217 See Chapter 10, pp. 317–9. See above, p. 282.

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Masculinity and sex This contrasts with some other times of moral fervour, when strictures have largely been directed at female sexual transgressions.219 The toleration of young male behaviour, however, suggests a deeper sense of sexual activity as intrinsic to masculinity, an early version of the ‘male sex drive’ discourse. Other evidence also implies a deep ambivalence in Carolingian authors towards the ‘demands’ of lay male sexual expression, with moralists alternating uneasily between demanding restraint from laymen and concern for their sexual ‘frailty’. A marriage without some sexual activity seemed anomalous. Non-consummation remained a reason for divorce even for Carolingian reformers, and there was no tradition of ‘spiritual marriage’, as in both earlier and later periods.220 Even married men, however, were not allowed sexual activities at all times. Moral texts that demand periods of sexual abstention within marriage assume a controllable male sex drive, unlike the later medieval view that the need to satisfy the marriage debt took priority over periods of abstinence.221 Jonas’ response to husbands who wished to sleep with their wives at will is marked by anger at their impudence, not compassion for their weakness. Nor were demands for male sexual restraint made only by churchmen.222 Further tensions around lay male sexuality are revealed in the penalties imposed for sexual ofences. Periods of penance normally involved marital abstinence, but this was sometimes relaxed for fear of provoking further sin.223 Views on whether ‘innocent’ spouses might be allowed to remarry in cases of separation were inconsistent.The Decretum Vermeriense forbade remarriage to a husband who slept with his stepdaughter, while allowing his wife to remarry if she could not be continent.224 Another clause stated that if a son slept with his stepmother, neither could ever (re)marry; the innocent husband could remarry, but it ‘is better to abstain’.225 Despite insistence in the ninth century on the indissolubility of marriage, the Council of Worms in 868 repeated the statement of the Council of Compiègne in 757, that if a married man slept with a mother and daughter, and neither woman knew about the other, the man must send away his wife, who is allowed to remarry.226 Lothar II’s claim to his bishops at the Council of Aachen in 862 was that as a young man he must 219

220

221 224 226

See for example Fletcher, Gender, pp. 276–8; Hagith Sivan, ‘Le Corps d’une pécheresse, le prix de la piété: La Politique de l’adultère dans l’Antiquité tardive’, Annales 53 (1998), 231–53, at pp. 246–7. Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton, 1993), pp. 74–93. Brundage, Law, Sex, p. 242. 222 See above, pp. 283–4. 223 See above, p. 287. Decretum Vermeriense, MGH Cap. i:16, p. 40, c. 2. 225 Ibid. p. 41, c. 10. Council of Worms 868, MGH Conc. 4:28, p. 287, c. 63, citing Decretum Compendiense 757, MGH Cap. i:15, p. 39, c. 17.

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Sex be allowed to remarry, now that they had forbidden him to remain with the ‘polluted’ Theutberga.227 The Council of Tribur of 895 shows a particularly curious wavering between indulgence and rigour. It decreed that if a woman whose husband was impotent slept with her brother-in-law, her marriage was dissolved and both the guilty parties could remarry after penance, because of the ‘weakness’ of their minds.228 If two brothers or a father and son successively slept with the same woman in ignorance of each other, the later man could marry after penance, to avoid being ‘wounded’ by the ‘very cruel beast of libido’, but the woman could not.229 If a man slept with a woman whom his brother then subsequently married, although the irst brother should undergo very harsh penance, he was subsequently allowed to remarry, but the woman was not.230 Finally the bishops were apparently unable to come to any deinite conclusion in the case of a married man who slept with his cousin, saying: ‘It may be just, as some of the ancestors’ statutes say, that such people should abstain from marriage perpetually. Yet it seems in respect of human fragility, that after penance he should not be deprived of marriage completely. Yet such monstrous fornication must be punished very harshly … lest perhaps they may sin many times, with conscience given up.’231 While this council showed more indulgence to male than female weakness, other sources permitted laywomen who could not be continent to remarry.232 Charles the Bald kept his daughter Judith under his guardianship ‘until such time as, if she could not remain chaste, she might marry in the way the apostle said, that is suitably and legally’.233 Carolingian moralists did not see women as naturally more lustful than men.234 Instead, those unable to resist sexual desire are most often described as displaying neither feminine weakness, nor masculine lust, but simply human ‘fragility’. S e x and the s ocial orde r Throughout history, a complex relationship has existed between marital and sexual norms and social classes. From the Merovingian period, marriage came to encompass partnerships of the unfree as well as the free.235 227 228 229 231

232 234

Airlie, ‘Private bodies’, pp. 24–6 Concilium Triburiense 895, MGH Cap. ii:252, pp. 207, 237, cc. 5, 41. Ibid., pp. 207, 238, cc. 6, 43. 230 Ibid., pp. 207, 238–9, cc. 7, 44. Cf. p. 207, c. 7. Ibid., p. 247, c. 3: ‘Iustum esset, sicut aliqua priorum statuta habentur, ut in perpetuum a coniugio tales abstineant. Visum est humane fragilitatis intuitu, ut post penitentiam non quidem penitus priventur coniugio, durissime tamen tam inmanis fornicatio vindicetur … ne forte desperata conscientia multiplicius peccent.’ See for example above, p. 305; Chapter 8, pp. 260–1. 233 AB 862, p. 56. Heene, Legacy, pp. 238–41. 235 See Chapter 6, p. 183.

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Sex and the social order As a result, Carolingian texts on marriage and sexual behaviour were implicitly addressed to the whole of society. Apart from some additional restrictions on whom an unfree person might marry, there is only one legal text that mentions social class when discussing sexual and marital rules: the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae from 782 × 785, which sets diferent ines for nobles, free and liti (half-free) contracting ‘illicit or prohibited’ marriages.236 Here the twin preoccupations of this capitulary, in enforcing Christian practice and respecting Saxon custom, may have overlapped momentarily.237 Leaving aside legislation, however, class-based rhetoric and social norms on sex and marriage are also a historical commonplace. Such attitudes are visible, for example, both in a second-century manual on dream interpretation that interprets dreams about sex favourably only if the couplings correctly mirror social status, and in eighteenth-century claims that wife-beating was a lower-class problem.238 In particular, from the Principate onwards, the Roman elite developed a discourse in which sexual restraint was a privileged sign of an upper class man’s suitability for rule or public oice. This discourse was adapted and extended by churchmen promoting celibacy in the fourth century, and repeated again in the tenth and eleventh centuries;239 it still remains a part of US political culture. Is such a class-based rhetoric visible in the Carolingian period? There are relatively few references to social class in discussions of sex and marriage. The Council of Pavia in 850 saw ‘rustics’ as particularly prone to marrying of underage boys to adult women.240 One of the sources referring to the Stellinga (Saxon peasant rebels) refers to ‘debaucheries’ (stuprae) as among their crimes;241 however, other equally hostile accounts do not mention their sexual sins.242 While later medieval thought speciically connected sodomy with ‘ignobility’, this is not visible in the Carolingian sources.243 Nobles, meanwhile, were sometimes considered as particularly likely to enter incestuous marriages.244 Jonas strongly condemns such behaviour, seeing it as ‘denobling’.245 Jonas was also concerned that the search for advancement in marriage led to other sins. Men who delayed marriage while seeking worldly honours might become corrupted, he warned.246 He condemns those who 236 237 238 239 242 243 246

Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, MGH Cap. i:26, p. 69, c. 20. McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 253–4. Foucault, History of Sexuality 3, pp. 31–6; Fletcher, Gender, p. 201. See Chapter 10, pp. 327–8, 337–8. 240 MGH Conc. 3:23, p. 229, c. 22. 241 AB 841, p. 26. AX 841–2, pp. 12–13; AF 842, pp. 38–9; Nithard 4:2, p. 42. Jordan, Invention, p. 169. 244 See Chapter 8, pp. 265–6. 245 See Chapter 4, p. 132. See above, pp. 283–4.

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Sex want to divorce and remarry when their wife becomes ill or her patrimony has been squandered.247 Jonas tells laymen: ‘Not so much riches and beauty, but rather modesty [pudicitia] and moral uprightness [probitas morum] should be sought in wives.’248 Other sources are more sympathetic to the wish of both men and women for marriage partners of high birth and wealth. Hucbald comments on the couple Adalbald and Rictrudis that both had the qualities normally sought in marriage partners: Adalbald had ‘virtue [virtus], birth, beauty and wisdom’, Rictrudis ‘beauty, birth, riches and character [mores]’.249 Although moralists sometimes saw noblemen as a group as prone to some sexual sins, the sexual misdemeanours of individual noblemen are rarely mentioned. In Carolingian visions of hell, the only layman punished for sexual sins is Charlemagne himself, and even then it is stressed that he will eventually reach heaven.250 While many sources denounce Bernard of Septimania, only Paschasius claims he is guilty of sexual ofences. This may be partly because other authors are trying to protect Judith’s reputation, but Agobard, though seeing Judith as unchaste, does not mention Bernard.251 Conversely, texts describing the Christian virtues of particular noblemen (such as Paulinus’ planctus on Eric of Friuli, Sedulius Scottus’ poems on Eberhard and Walahfrid Strabo’s commemoration of Gerald) do not mention their sexual restraint.252 As discussed above, counts were not speciically expected to demonstrate sexual virtue.253 Only later, with Odo of Cluny’s Gerald of Aurillac, did sexual asceticism re-emerge as a key indicator of more general virtue.254 If the sexual virtue of lay noblemen was no longer an important part of their claim to rule other classes, did it afect their authority to control women? Katrien Heene sees male control of the household in the Carolingian period as justiied more by direct Scriptural warrant than arguments about women’s moral inferiority.255 To ninth-century moralists, the failures of rulers to ensure their own continence and that of their household could become a symbol of wider moral and political failure.256 We cannot assume, however, that the same was true for lay noblemen: moralists’ views about kings difered from those about non-royal 247 248 250 252 253 254

255 256

DIL 2:12, col. 189. Ibid. 2:5, col. 179. 249 Hucbald, Vita sanctae Rictrudis, c. 5, col. 834. Visio Wettini, 446–65. 251 Ward, ‘Agobard’, pp. 19, 23. Paulinus, Carmen 2, pp. 131–2; Sedulius, Carmen ii:67, pp. 220–221; Visio Wettini, 811–19. See Chapter 5, pp. 154–6. Stuart Airlie, ‘The anxiety of sanctity: St Gerald of Aurillac and his maker’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43 (1992), 372–95, at pp. 389–92. Heene, Legacy, pp. 102–5, 262–3. See for example Ward, ‘Agobard’, p. 19; Airlie, ‘Private bodies’, pp. 30–5; LRC 5 (p. 34).

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Conclusion laymen.257 Unlike in some later societies, Carolingian moralists downplay the gender and social consequences of individual noblemen failing to control their own sexual behaviour, or that of their household.258 Count Boso, for example, is never criticised for his inability to control Ingiltrude.259 The Vita Ganguli shows the cuckolded Gangulf as a hero, not a igure of fun.260 Dhuoda is aware of Bernard’s moral failures, possibly including sexual ones, but does not see this as changing the basic power relations within her family.261 To Jonas, an adulterous man did lose his moral authority over his wife, but only so Christ could become her head, and restrain her from sexual urges.262 The husband’s temporal authority, however, remained. Carolingian thought thus disconnects the sexual behaviour of laymen from wider moral concerns: a kiss is just a kiss. Moral texts have little sense of ‘sexual identities’ more speciic than the category of ‘layman’.263 In particular, the ‘sodomite’, a speciic type of person later in the Middle Ages,264 is no more than a biblical igure or an alarming rumour in Carolingian texts. Conclusion Carolingian moralising on sexual behaviour ofers an apparent paradox. New restrictions were being demanded on laymen’s sexual behaviour, not simply women’s, even if the changes demanded by most moralists were much less radical than those on marital norms.Yet at the same time, sexual behaviour seems largely to have lost its earlier privileged status as a marker demonstrating manly or noble status. Sexually restrained behaviour for men was thus seemingly both more and less important in the Carolingian world than before. This paradox can be explained by seeing the classical and late antique emphasis on sexual morality as primarily resulting from competition between elite male groups, initially within the Roman senatorial class, and later between such traditional ‘public men’ and a new ascetic elite with lower social origins. Such an ideology of competitive celibacy had, however, already lost its impact by the ifth century, with the disappearance 257 258

259 261 262 264

Stone, ‘Kings’. See for example Fletcher, Gender, pp. 204–22, 256–79; Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity, p. 18; Shannon McShefrey, ‘Men and masculinity in late medieval London civic culture: Governance, patriarchy and reputation’, in Murray, Conlicted Identities, pp. 243–78, at p. 261. Stone, ‘Bound’, p. 476. 260 Stone, ‘Masculinity without conlict’. LM 3:1, pp. 84–6 (I disagree here with the assessment of Claussen, ‘Fathers’). See Chapter 6, p. 202. 263 On identities, see above, p. 281. Jordan, Invention, pp. 163–4.

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Sex of the igure of the pagan senator. Christian moralists, moreover, became increasingly concerned to support and celebrate the role of the conjugal couple as the basis of social order.265 In a Christianised, post-Roman world, with a militarised lay elite, selfcontrol was an intrinsically diicult virtue to use as the key marker of powerful men’s moral superiority.Violent behaviour in warfare, after all, had become a normal part of a nobleman’s social role. In addition, all men, and not just a moral elite of would-be public leaders, were now expected to have intercourse only with their wives. Unless a layman remained celibate, exceptional virtue could therefore be demonstrated only by a chaste adolescence (a transitory achievement) or by unusual restraint in marital sex (an essentially invisible area). Stressing sexual asceticism as a sign of virtue was to revive a competition between groups of elite men that only clerics and monks could hope to win. Since exemplary sexual behaviour was diicult for laymen to demonstrate publicly and often felt to be hard for them to achieve, moralists may also have felt it to be counter-productive to give sexual sins too much personal or cosmic signiicance, leading to either cynicism or despair about their message in lay audiences. If a man could lose the right to control his household owing to his own or his familia’s sins, patriarchal structures risked serious destabilisation. Similarly, for sexually lax laymen to be made to feel responsible for current natural and military disasters might simply have been too much for their ‘fragility’ to bear. Most Carolingian moralists, and indeed the penitentials, therefore demanded only that men were chaste before marriage, faithful within it and observed periods of marital abstinence. Such a programme was clearly deined and, although demanding, achievable. Men who failed to live up to these standards could in most cases be ‘healed’ by penance and still have hope for the future life. Normally, moralists focused on sexual acts more than desires; only Jonas suggested the worrying possibility of behaviour being judged as sinful on the basis of wrong intentions.266 Such additional demands, however, ran the risk in response of the ‘raucous laughter’ of married men, who could see nothing wrong in any sexual acts with their own wives. 265 266

See Chapter 10, pp. 327–9. See for example DIL 2:1, col. 167: ‘Quod conjugium a Deo sit institutum; et non sit appetendum causa luxuriae, sed liberorum procreatione’ (‘That marriage is instituted by God and not to be sought for the sake of luxury, but for the procreation of children’).

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Chapter 10

MEN A ND MOR ALITY

R e f le ctions i n the lay mirror s Thomas Noble describes the Carolingian lay noble ethos as ‘remarkably simple’, and some discussions have sought to boil it down to one or two essential concepts.1 Mayke de Jong, for example, stresses ides (loyalty to one’s lord) as a key virtue of elite society, while Eric Goldberg has argued that ‘Dignitas was at the heart of Carolingian political culture.’2 Yet closer analysis of speciic genres of moral texts has often revealed their variety. It is no coincidence that neither Hans Hubert Anton’s study of mirrors for princes, nor Franz Sedlmeier’s analysis of lay mirrors, ends with extensive conclusions: it has proved remarkably diicult to ind core themes in these genres.3 There is a very diferent lavour to each of the four lay mirrors discussed in this book. Paulinus’ repeated yet unfocused worries about ‘worldliness’ in Liber exhortationis seem to relect both the speciic date of his writing, and also diiculties in adapting monastic texts to produce a lay ethos. Alcuin, in contrast, seems to have found moral writing for lay audiences relatively easy, perhaps because of his constant resort to banalities. De virtutibus et vitiis, in particular, seems to me to assume an audience less of ‘spiritual athletes’ than ‘spiritual couch-potatoes’, which may explain its popularity. Certainly a moralist who can claim: ‘We can be martyrs without sword or lames if we truly preserve patience in the soul with our neighbours’ is not making excessive demands for holiness on his audience.4

1 2 3 4

Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, p. 16. De Jong, Penitential State, p. 204; Goldberg, Struggle, pp. 45–6. Anton, Fürstenspiegel; Sedlmeier, Laienparänetischen Schriften. DVV 9, col. 619: ‘Sine ferro vel lammis martyres esse possumus, si patientiam veraciter in animo servamus cum proximis nostris.’

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Men and morality In many ways Jonas is the mirror writer who challenges his lay readers and hearers most. He demands of them both a social conscience and a puritanically restrained sex life. In contrast to Alcuin, almost all of whose sources remain unspeciied, Jonas expects his audience to be willing to receive relatively undigested chunks of the Fathers, and even includes speciic references for further reading. Discussing how laymen should honour priests, for example, he says that those who wish to know more about the respectful attitude of the Emperor Theodosius to St Ambrose ‘should read book nine of the Tripartite History, under the thirtieth title’.5 Jonas’ increased expectations of his audience compared to the two earlier mirrors, both in terms of conduct and sources, suggests that the Carolingian reforms were having some impact on lay nobles, as does Dhuoda’s writing of her own mirror. The distinctive tone of Dhuoda’s work has often been noted, but the parallels with contemporary texts in the content have sometimes been overlooked. For example, Glenn Olsen argues for Dhuoda’s ‘ lay imagination’ in her use of the apostles’ common life in the book of Acts as a model for all Christians, but Jonas had already used this passage in a similar way.6 What Dhuoda’s manual does do, however, is explore how some of the abstract moral demands of previous mirror writers might be practised by a man in the midst of court life. Yet despite the diferences within the lay mirrors, a hypothetical lay nobleman who read all four of them might be left chastened, but probably not particularly confused. Although the detailed content often differs, there are relatively few contradictions: the mirrors all draw from the same moral repertoire and share the same reference points. The same is true for the other texts providing moral instruction discussed in this work. Supericial diferences between texts, and sometimes even conlicting ideas, cannot conceal consistent broader patterns in the way that Carolingian moralists discussed the conduct of warfare, the use of power and wealth, and male sexual behaviour. How can me n b e moral? The previous chapters have shown the moral norms proposed to noble laymen concerning war, power and sex. All three areas were discussed extensively, but the outcomes were noticeably diferent. Moralists accepted almost completely the existing culture of warfare, and made 5 6

DIL 2:20, col. 211. Glenn W. Olsen, ‘One heart and one soul (Acts 4:32 and 34 in Dhuoda’s “Manual”)’, Church History 61 (1992), 23–33; see Chapter 7, p. 241.

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How can men be moral? few attempts to change it. There were very few ‘Christian’ demands for limiting warfare, let alone any signs of paciism. Nor were there moral concerns about the conduct of warfare: all that mattered was that the ‘right’ side won. The moral discourse on power and money in works intended for a lay audience has two noteworthy aspects: some power relationships were subject to far more moral scrutiny than others, but the moral norms articulated in almost all areas are very vague and generalised. While Johannes Fried’s argument that Carolingian authors had no concept of impersonal public power is not supported by the discourse surrounding counts, he is, however, right to say there was no systematic discussion of power in Carolingian sources.7 There is, for example, no Carolingian equivalent to the irst book of Rather of Verona’s Praeloquia, with its detailed speciication of the moral virtues proper to speciic social statuses.8 Carolingian sources have a lot to say about some relationships, such as father and son, count and pagenses (county-dwellers), potens and pauper, and king and royal beneice-holder, while saying far less about others, such as masters and the unfree, lords and men, and between distant kin. Some important aspects of power are rarely mentioned. Power in the Carolingian world came far less from a formal legal framework than networks of personal relationships. Nobles could not simply dominate their local regions, but had to ‘service’ their power networks, by continued patronage and interventions.9 Yet the social ethics such a society required are not relected in moral texts. Dhuoda is the only writer to provide a guide on how to ‘win friends and inluence people’, and even she deals only with behaviour at court, not in the localities. Although William was not currently in a position to create and inluence such local relationships, this did not prevent Dhuoda from advising him about other future uses of power, such as acting as a judge. Some of the most radical changes in the structures of power, meanwhile, such as the vast increase in landowning by churches, or the rise of the vassus, are rarely discussed by moral texts.10 The vagueness of Carolingian discussions of lay power is also pervasive, not just in normative sources, such as the mirrors and capitularies (which do provide detailed sexual norms), but also in narrative sources and poetry (which contain important models for behaviour in warfare). There are some speciic criticisms of particular abuses of power in capitularies and councils, and also in the works of Jonas and Hincmar. More 7 8 10

Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’, pp. 17–18. Rather of Verona, Praeloquia, pp. 3–45. 9 Innes, ‘Practices’, p. 256. See Chapters 6, pp. 188–9; and 7, p. 222.

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Men and morality commonly, however, the ethics of power instead boil down to the continued repetition of a few key themes. The vocabulary used relects this: terms such as dominus, senior, pauper or idelitas are often detached from any particular social reality. Why was Carolingian moral thought on power restricted in this way? It cannot simply be due to a lack of sources: the Bible alone provides exemplars of good and bad behaviour by everyone from slaves to high royal oicials. Discussions of the ethics of wealth in the Carolingian period may have been hampered by the gap between late antique and early medieval economic systems.11 On other occasions, however, Carolingian reformers showed considerable creative thought in adapting earlier moral texts, such as in discussions of the ethics of royal power. Indeed, Hincmar’s treatise on raptus shows that theological arguments could simply be ‘invented’ by reformers to support or condemn contemporary social practices.12 Gert Althof suggested that the lack of discussion around many social relationships was a sign of consensus, but this is diicult to maintain.13 If there was a moral consensus on how one treated kin, for example, why was a need felt to spell out the speciic demands of father–son relationships? The limited discussion of some relationships may be due to a lack of interest in those of low social status, such as slaves or tenants. In contrast, some late antique conduct manuals for the laity, such as Ad Gregoriam in palatio, discuss the treatment of the household in some detail.14 Discussions of the moral norms around lordship may also have been deliberately downplayed owing to Carolingian sensitivities.15 Such factors, however, do not explain the broader tendency to vagueness on all topics concerning power. One possible reason for the bland generalisation of most discussions of lay power may have been the implication of the church in similar power structures. Were church leaders really in a position to moralise too speciically about such matters as the treatment of the unfree, the need for impartial justice or the dangers of wealth? Yet it seems to me wrong to assume that religious men were the only active deiners of moral norms. The reign of Louis the Pious, for example, shows the ruler developing theories of royal power, only for these to be taken up by his opponents and used against him.16

11 13 16

See Chapter 7, pp. 245–6. 12 See Chapter 8, pp. 253–4. Althof , Verwandte, pp. 11–12. 14 Cooper, Fall, pp. 114–33. 15 See Chapter 6, pp. 197–9. See for example de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 237–41 on the appropriation of the language of ministerium to condemn Louis.

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How can men be moral? Similarly, there are hints of several diferent moral agendas in discussions of lay noble power. Carolingian kings were clearly trying to reshape power relations by channelling local power into oicial structures. Churchmen appreciated lay nobles’ inancial and military support, but also saw them as potential threats to social order and their own property. Lay nobles were independently developing their own views on issues such as the moral nobility of laymen, their role in counsel-giving and God-given rights to secular oice.17 There may also have been difering views within these broad groupings: Dhuoda and Nithard, for example, had contrasting ideas about the balance of duties towards relatives and the res publica.18 In these circumstances, the resort to moral generalities on power may have been deliberate. Consensus between diferent elite groups on many moral norms may not have been pre-existing, as Althof suggests, but instead needed to be created, or at least restated in unthreatening terms. In a political system where the normal aim was to incorporate everyone who ‘mattered’ within a well-ordered whole, excessively pointed moral comments about any form or use of power may have been seen as unhelpful. The lack of an explicitly deined ordering of ‘lordships’, and the failure to lay down general moral principles on power, may not be a sign of the incapacity of Carolingian political thought, as Fried argues, but of a focus on unity, particularly in the capitularies.19 After all, the irst of Fried’s two suggested basic principles of power, Königsrecht bricht Adelsrecht (royal rights outweigh noble rights) would have been unacceptable in most of the Middle Ages, while the second, Gemeinnutz bricht Eigennutz (general beneit outweighs individual beneit) is contentious even now. Amid this consensual vagueness, a few areas, such as the treatment of pauperes or the need for justice, did receive more assertive moral comment. Such condemnations often seem to have occurred at the ‘tension points’ of the social system, where socially useful groups, such as smallscale landowners, were too vulnerable to the misuse of power for (relative) social and cosmic peace to be maintained. Generally, however, the power of lay nobles may have been so signiicant and delicate a matter that most moralists avoided making too many detailed comments. In contrast to their acceptance of the existing norms of warfare, and their resort to generalities on power, Carolingian moralists demanded, and sometimes attempted to enforce, new and speciic marital and sexual 17 19

See Chapters 4, p. 133; and 5, pp. 145–6, 148. 18 See Chapter 6, p. 212. Fried, ‘Karolingische Herrschaftsverband’, p. 17.

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Men and morality norms. Some of these, such as rules about divorce and consanguineous marriage, required alteration to existing social practices, and imposed noticeable limits on elite men’s freedom of action. Again, however, such changes were not simply imposed by rulers or the ‘church’, but required complex negotiations with laymen, some of whom beneited from such changes. There are signs of ideological conlict over particular issues, such as marital sex.20 Probably as a consequence, assemblies and councils seem deliberately to have focused on practices that were more amenable to alteration. The diferent approaches taken to these broad areas by moralists are not simply due to a lack of precedents: the Christian traditions they drew on inculcated widely varying social norms. In every area, Carolingian reformers could make a choice between making more and less radical demands on laymen for practical change. As Thomas Noble points out, Carolingian moralists did not tell their lay audiences that they must leave the world to ensure their salvation: instead, much of their moralising was intended to support the status of elite men within secular life.21 Reformers aimed to create a model of virtuous lay masculinity that, however uninspiring, was achievable for conscientious noblemen without abandoning their social position. Social realities and attitudes thus played a key role in shaping the moral norms proposed. In order for such norms to achieve some validity (in Weber’s sense),22 reformers had to avoid endangering the proper functioning of the Carolingian political and military system. They also had to allow noble laymen to maintain their privileged status, in terms both of class and gender. Noblemen as a group were not likely to accept, even in theory, codes of conduct that left them ‘dishonoured’ or ‘emasculated’. This explains the concern to reinforce, rather than threaten, noblemen’s power over their subordinates.23 The soft-pedalling in most discussions of noble consumption and display of wealth, meanwhile, suggests the importance of such a lifestyle to nobles’ self-image.24 Discussions of morally appropriate clothing and food focus mainly on the lay–religious divide and on social status. In contrast, there is less concern about distinguishing male and female costume or diet. At least in this ield of conduct, lay status and nobility apparently had to be ‘performed’ more than masculinity.25

20 22 24

See Chapter 9, pp. 288–9. See Chapter 1, pp. 10–11. See Chapter 7, pp. 235–9.

21 23 25

Noble, ‘Secular sanctity’, pp. 11–12. See Chapter 6, p. 213. See Chapter 7, pp. 238–9.

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How can moral men be manly? How can moral me n be manly? If Carolingian moral norms tell us a considerable amount about noblemen’s sense of identity, they are also revealing about contemporary ideas of masculinity. Moral norms were clearly gendered, with very diferent expectations about the activities and virtues of noblemen and noblewomen.26 The importance of warfare for lay masculine identity is also clear. Combat seems to have been nearly compulsory, at least for elite laymen, and cowardice or military incompetence was a serious accusation. There is a noticeable rhetorical emphasis on bravery in warfare as being manly.27 This emphasis on military activity as deining men is not unique to Carolingian society; many other cultures have been characterised by military aristocracies.Yet other aspects of Carolingian lay masculinity are more surprising. Sexual activity appears as less central to elite male status than in many other periods. Carolingian laymen were not expected to show their self-mastery by heroic sexual restraint, but neither were they derided by their peers if they were chaste.28 Some historians have seen domination over women as vital for masculinity,29 yet such domination, even of one’s own wife, was not necessary for Carolingian men to be called manly, as the Vita Ganguli shows.30 Carolingian discussions of lay morality also show an unusually asymmetric rhetoric of gender, even though they expected men and women to behave diferently. While moralists are happy to celebrate ‘manly’ behaviour, there is a repeated disinclination to describe immoral or inadequate behaviour by men as ‘woman-like’. Such comparisons are standard in other ancient and medieval cultures, but while Carolingian laymen might be derided for their cowardice, over-elaborate clothing or drinking, such behaviour was not seen as ‘female’.31 Nor were socially inferior groups, such as slaves or the poor, characterised in feminine terms.32 Why did texts addressed to laymen praise some men as masculine, while avoiding the common misogynous view that male failure was ‘feminine’? Is this simply a chance of the sources studied in this book? It is useful at this point to explore the use of gendered terms for moral praise and blame in Carolingian texts more generally, beyond the corpus of texts addressed to lay noblemen. Such a study reveals that the term viriliter (manfully) was not only used to praise actual warriors, but all men showing spiritual ‘courage’. Alcuin, for example, encouraged the religious 26 28 30 32

On ideals of noblewomen, see now Garver, Women. 27 See Chapter 3, pp. 88–9. See Chapter 9, pp. 308–10. 29 See for example McNamara, ‘Herrenfrage’, p. 5. See Chapter 9, p. 309; and below, p. 318. 31 See Chapters 3, p. 89; and 7, pp. 238–9. See Chapter 4, pp. 117–18.

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Men and morality community at York in 795: ‘If we overcome our enemies, with God’s help, and manfully resist devilish suggestions, we are going to receive the crown of perpetual praise and the palm of eternal blessedness.’33 A year later he urged Archbishop Eanbald II of York to ‘govern the ship of Christ manfully’ amid the ‘storms’ of the times.34 Adversity had to be endured viriliter: Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne after the deaths of Eric of Friuli and Charlemagne’s brother-in-law Gerald in 799 to tell him: ‘This life is the road for proceeding to the fatherland. If it is rough, if it is narrow, it is to be walked manfully.’35 Discussing the Adoptionist controversy, belief itself became manly, as Alcuin comments: ‘we stand manfully, armed against all novelties and unheard-of questions, defending the apostolic traditions’.36 Nor was Alcuin alone in his use of such language. Louis the Pious, in a diploma reforming the monastery of St Denis in 832, says that while some of the monks have abandoned the monastic life, ‘a certain part of them … chose especially to remain manfully in the purpose and habit of holy religion’.37 Hrabanus Maurus, commenting on the Gospel of Matthew, said that the names of the apostles Andrew and John ‘signify peoples [gentes] who manfully believe Christ’.38 The Vita Ganguli shows Gangulf killed in what might seem an ignominious way: while sleeping, he is attacked with his own sword by his wife’s clerical lover. Gangulf delects a blow aimed at his neck, only to be wounded severely in the hip instead, at which point his attacker lees. This hardly seems heroic, yet when Gangulf dies a few days later from the wound, having carefully received communion irst, the author comments on how he has ‘completed manfully the circle of this present life’.39 Exemplary masculinity could also be shown in obedience. Alcuin urged Charlemagne’s treasurer and ‘devoted helper’ Megenfrid, ‘to do his will manfully’.40 Pope Hadrian II called on the Synod of Douzy in 871 to support Bishop Actard of Nantes: ‘moved by fraternal charity, take care manfully to aid him with all your powers, humbly [humiliter] interceding before your most excellent king’.41 To Carolingian authors, therefore, ‘manly’ behaviour encompassed an enormous range, from boldness in battle to persistence in faith and 33 36

37 38 39 40 41

Alcuin, Epistola 43, p. 88. 34 Alcuin, Epistola 116, p. 171. 35 Alcuin, Epistola 198, p. 328. Alcuin, Contra Felicem Urgellitanum episcopum libri septem, PL 101, col. 133, Book ii, c. 7:‘armati [contra] omnes novitates et inauditas quaestiones stamus viriliter, defendentes apostolicas traditiones’. Louis the Pious, Diploma clxix, PL 104, col. 1208. Hrabanus Maurus, Commentariorum in Matthaeum libri octo, 2:4, PL 107, col. 791. Vita Ganguli 10, p. 164: ‘consummatoque viriliter praesentis aevi circulo’. Alcuin, Epistola 111, p. 161: ‘Et tu … adiutor devotus, viriliter fac voluntatem illis.’ Hadrian II, Epistola 34, MGH Epp. 6, p. 739.

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How can moral men be manly? humble supplication. Alcuin was particularly fond of using the biblical injunction viriliter age (‘act manfully’) to his correspondents.42 He did not reserve this expression solely for men, telling Charlemagne’s sister Gisela: ‘Manfully build an eternal home for yourself in the heavens.’43 Katrien Heene discusses other uses of viriliter being applied to women, a term that she sees as used in a ‘sex-neutral’ way by Carolingian authors.44 What tied these varying forms of masculinity together was Christian faith: even manly behaviour in battle was seen as exclusively an attribute of Christian armies.45 This equation of faith and gender is seen most clearly in one of Haimo of Auxerre’s homilies, when he explains why the gospel story of the feeding of the 5,000 only mentions men eating: Since only men are said to have been at this refreshment of the Lord, we are warned mystically that, if we should desire to taste how sweet the Lord is, we should be men, that is strong against the devil’s temptations … Nor will a woman remain hungry at this refreshment of the Lord if, with feminine sex, she should manfully restrain the attempts of the devil: just as on the contrary, a man by sex is made feminine in mind, if he is found soft and dissolute in his labour against the attack of temptation.46

If Haimo’s comments conirm that it was possible for Carolingian women to be described as manly, they also raise the worrying possibility for men that they might be undesirably ‘female’. Yet in this respect, Haimo’s comments were atypical. Carolingian texts make far less use of terms speciically indicating woman-like behaviour, such as muliebriter (in a womanly manner) and efeminatus (efeminate), than of viriliter. (Old 42

43 45 46

See for example Alcuin, Epistola 66, p. 65 (to ‘Dodo’); Epistola 183, p. 308 (to Elipandus of Toledo); Epistola 205, p. 342 (to abbots and monks of Gothia); Epistola 209, p. 347 (to ‘Calvinus’); Epistola 232, p. 377 (to Eanbald II of York).The phrase in the singular occurs four times in the Bible: Joshua 1:18; 1 Chronicles 22:13, 28:20; Psalms 26:14. Alcuin, Epistola 84, p. 127. 44 Heene, Legacy, pp. 248–53. See Chapter 3, pp. 88–9. Haimo of Auxerre, Homiliae de temporae 49, in Haimo of Auxerre, Homiliarum sive concionum ad plebem in evangelia de tempore et sanctis, PL 118, cols. 9–816, at col. 291: Cum ergo in hoc convivio Domini tantummodo viri fuisse dicuntur, mystice monemur ut, si quam suavis sit Dominus gustare desideramus, viri simus, id est fortes contra diaboli tentationes … Nec ab hac refectione Dominica femina jejuna remanebit, si sexu femineo viriliter tentamenta diaboli compresserit: sicut e contra vir sexu femineae mentis eicitur, si contra impetum tentationis mollis et dissolutus in opere suo invenitur. On Haimo see Dominique Iogna-Prat, ‘L’Oeuvre d’Haymon d’Auxerre: Etat de la question’, in Dominique Iogna-Prat, Colette Jeudy and Guy Lobrichon (eds.), L’Ecole carolingienne d’Auxerre: De Murethach à Rémi, 830–908, Entretiens d’Auxerre, 1989 (Paris, 1991), pp. 157–79; on the authenticity of this homily see Henri Barré, Les Homéliaires carolingiens de l’Ecole d’Auxerre: Authenticité, inventaire, tableaux comparatifs, initia, Studi e testi 225 (Vatican City, 1962), p. 151.

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Men and morality English shows the same pattern).47 Moreover, in contrast to the use of viriliter, the use of muliebriter and particularly efeminatus is largely in biblical commentaries.48 In commentaries and related religious texts, it is heretics and Jews who are most likely to be feminised. A commentary on Revelation attributed to Alcuin sees locusts with women’s hair as symbolising the ‘efeminate habits of heretics’.49 Paulinus of Aquileia, in his tract against the Adoptionist Felix of Urgel, wonders if Felix should be referred to as a man (vir): ‘since he acts not manfully, but weakly [enervitur]’.50 Haimo of Auxerre’s commentary on Isaiah says that the efeminati in the book are those ‘who have their fortitude and manly stability reduced to feminine softness. Such are the princes of the Jews today.’51 If ‘women-like’ men in religious texts are often marginalised igures, they hardly appear at all in texts for lay audiences. Hincmar in De divortio refers to sodomites as efeminate.52 There are a couple of negative references to ‘woman-like’ behaviour by hagiographers: Aimo of St Germain-des-Prés reports two clerics quarrelling over the possession of some relics muliebriter, while Hucbald says that Saint Rictrude acted ‘not muliebriter but viriliter’, when she sought royal permission to leave the world.53 Freculf of Lisieux, following his sources, makes two references to ‘efeminate’ behaviour by men in his world history.54 The only political use I have found of such terms, however, is Paschasius’ claim that in the aftermath of Louis the Pious’ deposition in 833: ‘the opinions of men heaped up, but feminised [efeminati], they did not advance by their strength [vires], so that hardly a man [vir] might be 47

48

49

50

51

52 53

54

See Frantzen, Before the Closet, pp. 74–5 on the relative use of manlice/werlice and wylice/fæmenlic). The Vulgate has seven uses of viriliter, none of muliebriter, and seven of efeminatus and its cognates. In the Patrologia Latina volumes of Carolingian authors, ive out of ten uses of muliebriter are from biblical commentaries, thirty-seven out of ifty for efeminatus and its cognates. Alcuin(?), Commentariorum in Apocalypsin libri quinque, PL 100, col. 1140, iv.9.7. On the work’s authorship see Jullien and Perelman, Clavis scriptorum 2, pp. 368–9. Paulinus of Aquileia, Contra Felicem libri tres, ed. Dag Norberg, CCCM 95 (Turnhout, 1990), 1:12, p. 17. Haimo of Auxerre, Commentariorium in Isaiam libri tres i, c. 3, PL 116, col. 737: ‘Efeminati autem sunt, qui fortitudinem stabilitatemque virilem in femineam mollitiem habent redactam.Tales sunt hodie principes Judaeorum.’ On the attribution of the commentary, see Iogna-Prat, ‘L’Oeuvre’, pp. 163–4. De divortio, Responsio 12, p. 181. Aimoin of St Germain-des-Prés, Translatio Vincentii levitae et martyris, 1:7, PL 126, cols. 1011–27, at col. 1018; Hucbald, Vita sancti Rictrudis, c. 7, col. 836. Freculf of Lisieux, Historiarum libri xII, ed. Michael I. Allen, CCCM 169a (Turnhout, 2002), i.vi.7, p. 330 (quoting Josephus, De bello iudaico, i.57): John the Maccabee is ‘efeminised’ by his grief in seeing his mother tortured; ii.iii.14, p. 588 (quoting Cassiodori-Epiphanii historia ecclesiastica tripartita, i.vii.3, p. 21): Constantius reproaches Christian counsellors of his who are prepared to abandon their faith as efeminati.

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Theories of Carolingian masculinity found to pledge himself for the salvation of the country or to ofer himself to dangers for the citizens’.55 In comparison to much of Paschasius’ rhetoric, this is relatively tame stuf , and he does not characterise any of his main villains as ‘feminine’. By contrast, in the sixth century, Gregory of Tours has Count Palladius call a bishop he disliked ‘soft and efeminate’ and ask him ‘where are your husbands?’.56 T h eori e s of Caroling i an masc ul inity How do such patterns of moral discourse it with existing theories about Carolingian masculinity? Such discussions have been relatively rare, with studies of late antique masculinity normally ending with the ifth or sixth century, and examination of medieval masculinity often beginning with the Gregorian reforms. Implicitly or explicitly, the period between tends to be treated as an unmarked ‘before’ or ‘after’, a period whose ideals of masculinity are somehow outside historical development. For example, Jo Ann McNamara claimed that it was only in the time of the Gregorian reforms that the shocking implications of clerical celibacy for masculinity were truly confronted.57 The main paradigms used by scholars who have speciically focused on eighth- and ninth-century masculinity are those of a ‘gender continuum’ and of a crisis of masculinity. The concept of a gender continuum was irst developed by Carol Clover for early Norse society. Clover argued for a ‘permeable’ gender barrier: there was inally just one ‘gender’, one standard by which persons were judged adequate or inadequate, and it was something like masculine.What inally excites fear and loathing in the Norse mind is not femaleness per se, but the condition of powerlessness, the lack or loss of volition, with which femaleness is typically, but neither inevitably nor exclusively associated … what prompts admiration is not maleness per se, but sovereignty of the sort enjoyed mostly and typically and ideally, but not solely, by men.58

Clover sees this opposition, summarised in the adjectives hvatr/blauÞr, working ‘more as a gender continuum than a sexual binary’59 and thinks it may result in the ‘frantic machismo of Norse males, at least as they are

55 56

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EA 2:19, col. 1641. Gregory of Tours, Historiarum libri x, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SrM i:1 (Hanover, 1937), 4:39, p. 170. McNamara, ‘Herrenfrage’. Cf. Jacqueline Murray, ‘Masculinizing religious life: Sexual prowess, the battle for chastity and the monastic identity’, in Cullum and Lewis, Holiness and Masculinity, pp. 24–41. Clover, ‘Regardless of sex’, p. 379. 59 Ibid., p. 377.

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Men and morality portrayed in the literature’.60 Julia Smith’s pioneering study of Carolingian gender claimed that such a gender continuum was equally applicable to the West in the seventh to ninth centuries; just as women could rise into manliness, men could fall into feminine weakness.61 Lynda Coon argues for the existence of similarly luid ideas of gender in Carolingian thought, based on classical medical theories. Masculinity and the male body were associated with heat, dryness, hardness and impenetrability; female bodies and femininity with coldness, wetness, softness and porosity. Ascetic men, in her view, deliberately placed laymen’s bodies as nearer the ‘feminine’ pole than their own, while still worrying about their own possible emasculation if they failed to maintain their own bodies in a ‘hard’ and bounded state.62 As shown above, however, most Carolingian texts do not support such ideas of a continuum; rather they suggest a ‘one-way’ gender barrier, in which, while women could become admirably masculine, only marginal men were regarded as ‘female’. There are a few counter-examples, but these are rare: there was no widespread attempt to tell Carolingian laymen that they risked becoming women. In particular, Lynda Coon’s argument that clerical writers did continually stress the ‘female’ qualities of laymen presumes, rather than demonstrates, continuity with classical understandings of the gendered body. Did Carolingian laymen who were warned of the dangers of ‘softness’ (mollitia) by moralists automatically locate this within a classical discourse of sexual passivity and efeminacy, opposed to manly hardness (duritia)?63 If so, it seems strange that Alcuin should think it appropriate to tell Charlemagne: ‘Behold, with how much devotion and kindness, for the love of Christ’s name, you have laboured to soften [emollire] the hardness [duritia] of the unhappy people of the Saxons through the counsel of true salvation.’64 In a world where hardness could now be wicked as well as good, we cannot assume that older gendered binaries went without saying, especially when Carolingian reformers rarely thought that any moral truth went without saying. This is not to deny the possibility of more than one gendered discourse existing in the Carolingian world. Elsewhere, Coon discusses an image that Hrabanus Maurus uses in his commentary on Leviticus: Christian preachers emit the word of God as semen, impregnating the 60 62

63

Ibid., p. 380. 61 Smith, ‘Gender and ideology’, pp. 58–9. Lynda L. Coon, ‘Somatic styles of the early Middle Ages’, Gender and History 20 (2008), 463–86, at pp. 465–9. Ibid., p. 465. 64 Alcuin, Epistola 110, p. 157.

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Theories of Carolingian masculinity hearing mind with the ofspring of good works.65 As Coon comments, this suggests that the Carolingian male ascetic body had not entirely lost its ‘mystical erotic power’, a power denied to the non-ascetic layman.66 Yet unlike in the late antique world, such ascetic claims were now politically marginal. Hrabanus’ exegesis of Leviticus is an explanation of its ‘multiple mysteries’ for a fellow religious (Freculf of Lisieux), unlike the biblical commentaries he wrote for rulers.67 In the discourse of assemblies and councils, ‘spiritual fatherhood’ was now more often associated with the igure of the godparent. Councils and episcopal capitularies repeatedly urged godparents to instruct their spiritual children in the faith.68 Alcuin similarly tells Count Guy that anyone with ‘spiritual or carnal’ sons should raise them to be chaste.69 The carnal father could now himself be a spiritual father, just as the earthly warrior could also ight spiritual foes.70 Carolingian crises? While the discussions of Coon and, to a lesser extent, Smith, draw heavily on early medieval ‘scientiic’ texts, particularly the works of Isidore of Seville, other studies of Carolingian masculinity have focused on narrative texts and the lay mirrors. Both Janet Nelson and Meg Leja claim that the Carolingian period was one of anxiety and even crisis, for men. Nelson uses speciic case-studies to argue that Carolingian reforms produced a crisis of identity in some young lay noblemen, unsure whether or not they should leave the world.71 Leja has seen the bleak picture of lay noblemen given in Nithard’s Histories as indicating ‘a crisis in masculinity’ in the mid ninth century.72 The Carolingian period was certainly not short of crises and alarmist rhetoric: Nelson has described Charlemagne’s reign as ‘frankly, one goddamn crisis after another’,73 while empire-wide crises are also visible from 828 to 834 and 840 to 843, and frequently alleged for the late ninth 65

66 67

68 69 72 73

Lynda L. Coon, ‘“What is the word if not semen?” Priestly bodies in Carolingian exegesis’, in Brubaker and Smith, Gender, pp. 278–300, at p. 279. Ibid., pp. 297–8. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 10, p. 396 gives the text of Hrabanus’ dedication letter for Leviticus; on his commentaries for Carolingian rulers, see Mayke de Jong, ‘The empire as ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus and biblical historia for rulers’, in Hen and Innes, Uses, pp. 191–226. On the important spiritual as well as social role of godparents see Lynch, Godparents, pp. 318–32. DVV 18, col. 627. 70 See Chapter 3, p. 84. 71 Nelson, ‘Monks’. Leja, ‘Making of men’, p. 3. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Making a diference in eighth-century politics: The daughters of Desiderius’, in Murray, After Rome’s Fall, pp. 171–90, at p. 172.

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Men and morality century.74 This does not include more localised crises, ranging from the problems within the important monastery of Fulda between 802 and 818, to Charles the Bald’s near loss of his kingdom in 858 and Lothar II’s drawn-out attempts at divorce.75 Paul Dutton comments ‘the conception of a troubled age became an intellectual space into which they [Carolingian intellectuals] could pour their complaints about the dangerous turn of the times’.76 As discussed in the introduction, I have seen such discourse as the key marker of crisis: a crisis exists when contemporaries think it does, or at least those who can shout loudly enough think it does.77 The problem remains how to distinguish crises in masculinity from the crises of individual men, or groups of men, in a textual corpus that focuses overwhelmingly on the behaviour of elite men. Janet Nelson’s six examples of anxious young men, for example, are a mixed bunch, and apparent similarities in their position conceal deeper diferences. If King Alfred did have a crisis about lay masculinity, he seems to have overcome it, becoming a successful war leader and father. Odo of Cluny, Gerald of Aurillac and Wolo are known only from postCarolingian texts, and their behaviour seems to me to relect later monastic preoccupations.78 Simon Maclean plausibly argues that the records of Charles the Fat’s behaviour in 873 represent a deliberately ‘misunderstood’ ritual of reconcilation, rather than a spiritual crisis.79 That leaves only the case of Rigramnus of Le Mans, whose dilemma at choosing between being a canon or a monk may relect rivalries between diferent types of religious more than the concerns of laymen.80 In several of the cases highlighted by Nelson, moreover, another source of crisis is visible: Odo, Gerald, Charles the Fat and Rigramnus all had tensions with their fathers. This certainly was an ideologically charged area for Carolingian moralists, and the strong moral demands

74

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76 77 78

79

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See for example de Jong, Penitential State; Nelson, Charles the Bald, pp. 105–31; MacLean, Kingship, pp. 3–10. See Richard Corradini, ‘The rhetoric of crisis: Computus and Liber annalis in early ninth-century Fulda’, in Corradini, Diesenberger and Reimitz, Construction, pp. 269–323; Nelson, Charles the Bald, pp. 181–91; Airlie, ‘Private bodies’. Dutton, Politics, p. 1. See Chapter 1, pp. 20–1. On Odo of Cluny’s portrayal of Gerald as a sharp break from Carolingian models of lay potentes see below, p. 337. Simon MacLean, ‘Ritual, misunderstanding, and the contest for meaning: Representations of the disrupted royal assembly at Frankfurt (873)’, in Weiler and MacLean, Representations of Power, pp. 97–119. For details of this text see Giles Constable, ‘Monks and canons in Carolingian Gaul: The case of Rigrannus of Le Mans’, in Murray, After Rome’s Fall, pp. 320–36.

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Theories of Carolingian masculinity to obey fathers may well have created crises for young men feeling unable to do so.81 If some Carolingian noblemen did feel anxious enough about lay life to leave the world, it is hard to see this as motivated primarily by their moral instruction. In the early sixth century, Caesarius of Arles deliberately used gendered rhetoric in order to bring force and urgency to his sermons condemning sinful male conduct, such as drunkenness and lust.82 In contrast, the ideological pressures about lay masculinity in Carolingian moral texts simply seem inadequate to drive many men into crisis. Moralists did not claim that lay masculinity was a hopeless case, or that laymen must abandon their current way of life. Instead, the Carolingian reform movement’s main message was an optimistic one for lay noblemen, encouraging them that they could live a good Christian life while remaining in the world and making relatively minor changes to their lifestyle. Alcuin, for example, ends De virtutibus et vitiis by reassuring Guy that the doors of heaven are open to him too.83 Nithard’s bleak view of his own society, in contrast, is clear, and his focus on elite laymen inevitably makes their failures the most prominent.84 Yet his diagnosis of what is wrong does not pivot around loss of masculinity. The Frankish tragedy to Nithard is the loss of consensus and a concern for the common good, in contrast to a golden age under Charlemagne.85 Frankish men have certainly gone the wrong way in Nithard’s account, but he does not describe this in terms of ‘feminine’ or ‘unmanly’ behaviour, or call for them to return to true manliness. Indeed, his one reference to ‘virile’ behaviour in the Histories is entirely conventional, when Louis the German ‘manfully’ resists Lothar’s army.86 It is only if we take criticisms of male behaviour as automatically implying a critique of masculinity that Nithard can be seen as rejecting the existing ideology of lay noble masculinity. If there is little evidence of a crisis in lay masculinity in the Carolingian period, is there more for religious men undergoing such a crisis? A full response would require a detailed exploration of the relevant texts, but a few points are worth making. Some authors have seen clerical masculinity as permanently in crisis, with celibacy inherently destabilising masculine identity.87 It seems unlikely, however, that so many elite men would have chosen the religious life, or chosen it for their sons, if that had been the case. 81 83 85 87

See Chapter 7, pp. 206–7. 82 Bailey, ‘These are not men’, p. 39. See Chapter 1, p. 1. 84 Airlie, ‘World’, pp. 67–76. Nithard 4:7, pp. 49–50. 86 Ibid. 2:1, p. 14. McNamara, ‘Herrenfrage’, p. 5; Coon, ‘Somatic styles’, p. 466.

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Men and morality Others scholars have claimed that late antiquity and the early medieval period were marked by the creation of a ‘third gender’, in which the celibate, or at least celibate men, were seen as beyond masculinity and femininity.88 However, there is little evidence for Carolingian religious men being seen as a ‘third gender’; as discussions of ‘manly’ behaviour make clear, monks and clerics were repeatedly credited with ‘masculine’ status.89 In addition, the Carolingian religious elite do not seem to have found celibacy diicult. The known examples of sex scandals and clerical marriage are almost entirely conined to relatively lowly priests; there are no equivalents to the married bishops of the early eighth and eleventh centuries.90 As Mayke de Jong puts it, Hincmar was ‘a powerful bishop who could aford to stay away from women’.91 Indeed, the main temptations that allured such elite churchmen seem to have been power and wealth. In 811 Charlemagne demanded an exploration of what it meant ‘to leave the world’: he highlighted the desire of ascetics for property, but said nothing about their sexual desire.92 Seventy years on, Notker’s anecdotes about misbehaving bishops have far more to say about their greed for power or luxury than their lust; he includes only one story about a bishop fornicating.93 T owards ear ly me di eval masculinity If Carolingian masculinity was not in crisis, this makes the period relatively unusual, given how often the crisis narrative has appeared in studies of other historical periods.94 Why is there little of the rhetoric of efeminacy visible in other periods, and why do texts show such a 88

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Jo Ann McNamara, ‘Chastity as a third gender in the history and hagiography of Gregory of Tours’, in Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood (eds.), The World of Gregory of Tours, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions 8 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 199–209; Jacqueline Murray, ‘One lesh, two sexes, three genders?’, in Lisa M. Bitel and Felice Lifshitz (eds.), Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives (Philadelphia, 2008), pp. 34–51. See above, pp. 317–9. Cf. Ruth Mazo Karras, ‘Thomas Aquinas’s chastity belt: Clerical masculinity in medieval Europe’, in Bitel and Lifshitz, Gender and Christianity, pp. 52–67, at pp. 53, 60. On the late Merovingian and Carolingian church, see Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy, Vol. i, pp. 141–63; on the symbolic importance of episcopal wives to eleventh-century reformers see Conrad Leyser, ‘Custom, truth and gender in eleventh-century reform’, in Swanson, Gender, pp. 75–91, at p. 82 De Jong, ‘Imitatio morum’, p. 59. Capitula de causis cum episcopis et abbatibus tractandis, MGH Cap. i:72, pp. 162–4; Stone, ‘In what way’, p. 16. Notker 1:25, pp. 33–4. Judith A. Allen, ‘Men interminably in crisis? Historians on masculinity, sexual boundaries and manhood’, Radical History Review 82 (2002), 191–207 lists some of the many scholarly and popular works on the theme.

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Towards early medieval masculinity broad interpretation of masculinity and male roles? Any discussion of Carolingian attitudes needs to consider these in the wider context of changing antique and early medieval ideologies. The starting point is the inheritance of classical Roman ideas of gender. These themselves were not static: several scholars have argued that the change in power structures from Republican to imperial Rome, and the increasing extent to which the senatorial elite were now a purely civilian group, produced new ideas of masculinity, in which traditional martial elements lost much of their signiicance.95 Imperial Roman culture celebrated the upper-class vir (as contrasted to the homo), a man of legitimate power and autonomy, whose control of himself and his own body justiied his control over others.96 One of the key terms of praise for such men was the word virtus, which could mean ‘manliness’, ‘power’ or ‘virtue’, or all these simultaneously. In particular, the upperclass man whose sexual self-control meant he did not seduce the sons or wives of others demonstrated by this rectitude his suitability for rule or public oice.97 This ideology was potentially challenged by Jesus’ renunciation of power and submission to others. As Gillian Clark puts it: ‘Christianity supplied a new tool-kit … for the deconstruction of masculinity … Men were required to renounce power, or at best to reinterpret it as power over hostile spirits. They had to acknowledge physical maleness, which had been a manifestation of dominance and superiority, as the most persistent witness to their distance from God.’98 One alternative to alienation from Roman ideas of masculinity was to co-opt such ideals for Christianity: such a process is already visible in Clement of Alexandria’s second-century fusion of Christianity and Stoicism.99 However, Clement’s celebration of the Christian leadership of the married laity was not followed by later generations. Instead, virginity was exalted as an ideal.100 By the late fourth century, Christian ascetics in the western Roman empire went further, subverting existing ideals of male self-control to 95

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99

See for example Barton, ‘All things’; Richard Alston, ‘Arms and the man: Soldiers, masculinity and power in Republican and imperial Rome’, in Lin Foxhall and John Salmon (eds.), When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity, Leicester–Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 8 (London, 1998), pp. 205–23; Myles McDonnell, Roman Manliness:Virtus and the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 385–9. Walters, ‘Invading’; Francesca Santoro L’Hoir, The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: “Man”, “Woman”, and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose, Mnemosyne Supplementum 18 (Leiden, 1992), pp. 197–204. See for example Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (New York, 1985), pp. 170–4; Cooper, ‘Insinuations’, pp. 151–3. Gillian Clark, ‘The old Adam: The Fathers and the unmaking of masculinity’, in Foxhall and Salmon, Thinking Men, pp. 170–82, at p. 181. Ibid., pp. 171–3; Brown, Body and Society, pp. 122–39. 100 Ibid., pp. 137–9.

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Men and morality claim superior virtue to married men of higher social status. They did this by dwelling on married men’s supposedly indulgent private lives. In contrast to such men, the ascetics claimed that their own extreme selfcontrol showed a lack of attachment to power, which thus made them the ideal wielders of it for the common good.101 Kate Cooper and Conrad Leyser describe the ‘shrill asceticism’ of Jerome as ‘an attempt to participate in, while altering the rules of, the ancient game of masculinity’.102 Ascetics portrayed themselves not just as manly, but more manly than laymen or married clerics, as part of a claim to superior authority.103 What was the result of such ideological conlicts? Some historians have concluded that Christian ascetics succeeded in their aim of producing a new ‘hegemonic masculinity’.104 Yet it is doubtful whether this celibate vision of masculinity was hegemonic. An alternative idea of virility, emphasising violent male power and ferocity, seems to have gained new force in the fourth-century Roman empire, as civilian and military career paths became more completely separated.105 Kate Cooper, meanwhile, has explored a late antique Christian counter-tradition to Jerome’s loud asceticism, which instead celebrated the Christian virtues of the (civilian) married senatorial elite.106 Cooper and Conrad Leyser also argue that claims to masculinity, and hence to authority, increasingly lost their focus on sexuality in the ifth century. Augustine, in his concern to avoid a split between radical ascetics and the Christian majority, not only rejected the ascetic equation of extreme sexual self-control with holiness, but satirised it so efectively that ‘he collapsed the polarity deining ancient manhood and so removed the conventional basis for claims to moral authority’.107 As a result, ‘a number of central ascetic writers [of the ifth century West] … are noticeable not for any escalation of the sexual discourse of masculine identity, but rather for their increasing emphasis on social (rather than sexual) relations as the crucial discursive element’.108 Gregory the Great in his Pastoral Rule produced a model for a ruler that simply ignores celibacy.109 Albrecht Diem, meanwhile, has documented the change from a late antique ideal of the monk battling for chastity to an early medieval view of him as an asexual, though masculine, being.110 101 102

103 104 105

106 108

Cooper, ‘Insinuations’, pp. 162–4. Kate Cooper and Conrad Leyser, ‘The gender of grace: Impotence, servitude and manliness in the ifth-century West’, Gender and History 12 (2000), 536–51, at p. 539. See for example Kueler, Manly Eunuch, pp. 296–7; Cooper, ‘Insinuations’, pp. 155–6. Kueler, Manly Eunuch, pp. 4–6. Alston, ‘Arms and the man’, pp. 218–21; Guy Halsall, ‘Gender and the end of empire’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34 (2004), 17–39, at pp. 22–4. See in particular Cooper, Fall. 107 Cooper and Leyser, ‘Gender of grace’, p. 543. Ibid., p. 537. 109 Leyser, ‘Custom’, p. 85. 110 See Chapter 9, pp. 296–7.

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Towards early medieval masculinity Competing ideals of masculinity thus continued to exist in the West after the fourth century, but did not necessarily take the same form as in earlier periods.111 Modern ideas of masculinity are often seen as reactive to changing views about women.112 In contrast, the driving forces behind changing early medieval ideologies were the needs of elite men, and competition between groups of such men. Conrad Leyser, for example, argues that the need for religious leaders to stress an ascetic rhetoric of masculinity was reduced after the disappearance of pagan senators, and their competing claims to authority via self-control.113 One key social factor in the post-Roman world was the diferent relationship between the secular nobility and religious men. The barbarian kingdoms possessed dual military and religious hierarchies, who needed to collaborate more closely than in the late Roman empire. Gregory of Tours’ image of the good society, for example, sees it as fundamentally deined by the collaboration of kings and bishops.114 As Roman and barbarian elites fused, families and individuals had a choice between these two hierarchies, and elite families would often have members within both hierarchies, still working together. The need for decisions about future careers this entailed may have caused stress for individual men, when family and personal wishes conlicted.115 On the other hand, the model of the manly bishop and monk provided elite men who lacked physical prowess (the unwarlike or those who had simply grown too old to ight) with alternative ways to demonstrate a culturally exalted masculinity. In this, Christianised post-Roman societies contrasted sharply with a Scandinavian world in which male failure eventually came to all, and every man in old age became a despised and feminised weakling.116 The gift-exchange of spiritual and material rewards is also increasingly visible at all levels from the sixth century onwards, from ‘the church’ praying for its royal protectors, to the relatively lowly laymen wishing to be the ‘neighbours’ of a monastery’s saints. In particular, the rising importance of the oblate, the child ofered for a monastic life by his or her parents, produced a new relationship between ascetics and the world.117 As a result, the rhetorical need to denigrate lay married life in order to win adult recruits to monasticism was greatly 111 113 114

115 117

Halsall, ‘Gender’, p. 31. 112 Kimmel, ‘Contemporary “crisis”’, p. 123. Leyser, ‘Custom’, p. 85. Martin Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours: History and Society in the Sixth Century, trans. Christopher Carroll (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 207–8. See above, pp. 324–5. 116 Clover, ‘Regardless of sex’, pp. 381–5. On (male) oblates, see Mayke de Jong, In Samuel’s Image: Child Oblation in the Early Medieval West, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 12 (Leiden, 1996).

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Men and morality diminished. Once noble families were the key providers and protectors of the material and personnel resources of monasteries, as exempliied in the family monastery, there was an important incentive for churchmen to enhance the social and moral status of the lay nobility, rather than undermine it.118 Another important change was the spread of masculinity down the social spectrum, in contrast to a classical model that excluded all but the elite from the status of ‘true’ men.119 The metaphor of God relating to humans as a ‘lord’ or ‘patron’ to his man, stressed by Faustus of Riez in the ifth century, implied that service and subordination could be as honourable as domination.120 Lisa Bailey shows how the classical rhetoric of elite masculinity was used by Caesarius of Arles to exhort the men of Arles to virtue, regardless of their class.121 Once the unfree were living in their own households and had their relationships recognised as marriage, even they had a claim to patriarchal authority and status.122 Carol ing i an re f orm and ge nde r These changes in social structure were already probably afecting concepts of masculinity in Francia before the Carolingians came to power, though there have so far been few attempts to attempt to explore the ideologies of masculinity in the late Merovingian period.123 The policies of Carolingian rulers only increased tendencies towards the intertwining of lay and religious hierarchies, and the attribution of ‘masculine’ authority to increasingly large parts of society.The programme of reform meant that at the elite level, religious and lay magnates were routinely expected

118

119

120 121 123

On family monasteries, see Innes, State, pp. 25–9; Susan Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford, 2006), pp. 118–21. Jo Ann McNamara, ‘Gendering virtue’, in Sarah B. Pomeroy (ed.), Plutarch’s Advice to the Bride and Groom and A Consolation to His Wife: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography (New York, 1999), pp. 151–61, at p. 156. Cooper and Leyser, ‘Gender of grace’, pp. 546–7. Bailey, ‘These are not men’, p. 38. 122 See Chapter 6, p. 183. John Kitchen, Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography (Oxford, 1998) covers only a few texts, mainly from around 600. Lynda Coon’s discussions of seventh- and eighth-century texts are largely conined to Isidore of Seville: Coon, ‘Somatic styles’; Lynda L. Coon, ‘Gender and the body’, in Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia H. Smith (eds.), Early Medieval Christianities, c. 600–c. 1100, Cambridge History of Christianity 3 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 433–52. A detailed look at the chastity of male and female religious in Albrecht Diem, Das monastische Experiment: Die Rolle der Keuschheit bei der Entstehung des westlichen Klosterwesens, Vita Regularis 24 (Münster, 2005) includes some seventh-century material (see for example pp. 266–72, 286–9, 294–313). On eighth-century Italy, see Ross Balzaretti, ‘Masculine authority and state identity in Liutprandic Italy’, in Walter Pohl and Peter Erhart (eds.), Die Langobarden: Herrschaft und Identität, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 9 (Vienna, 2005), pp. 361–82.

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Carolingian reform and gender to work together (literally so, in the case of missi). Elite churchmen also played a newly emphasised role in Carolingian warfare.124 Although Carolingian reformers particularly gloriied the lay elite, the desire to transform the whole of society meant that other less prestigious social groups also had to be encouraged to participate. Charlemagne in 802 had all law-worthy local men swear an oath to him that was also a pledge of self-discipline in God’s service.125 The relatively lowly parish priests had an important role to play in spreading correct behaviour into the localities.126 Women too, had important tasks: both religious women as holy intercessors with God, and matriarchs as providers of domestic pastoral care and education.127 Carolingian moralists needed to encourage their eforts as well, making for a complex discourse of gender. Christianity had ofered new possibilities to women from its inception. Early Christian celebration of the Virgin, in particular, ofered a vocation of particular honour within the church. There have been many studies of the experiences of religious women in late antiquity and in Merovingian Francia, and of the gendered discourses around them.128 Some patristic authors were also seeking, however, to provide positive models for Christian women who remained in lay life.129 Two changes in the discourse around women are visible in the Carolingian period. One, which has often been noted, is the increased praise given to marriage and to married women.130 Another, less commented on, is that writers largely lost interest in female virginity, perhaps because oblation made the large-scale creation of male virgins possible. While the role of religious women was not denigrated, they no longer had the symbolic importance to society that they had possessed earlier.131 It has often been presumed that highlighting exemplary Christian women necessarily created anxieties about male status, but I would argue that the underpinnings of Carolingian patriarchy were suiciently strong to prevent this. The ideology of male supremacy relied on an interlocking framework of Roman, Christian and barbarian practices. At the bodily level, scripture and theology provided a view of creation in which 124 126

127 128

129 130

131

See Chapter 3, p. 69. 125 Nelson, ‘Charlemagne and empire’, pp. 230–1. Carine van Rhijn, ‘Priests and the Carolingian reforms: The bottlenecks of local correctio’, in Corradini et al., Texts and Identities, pp. 219–37. On women’s educational roles, see Garver, Women, pp. 122–69. See for example Cloke, ‘This female man’; Wemple, Women, pp. 127–87; Julia M. H. Smith, ‘Radegundis peccatrix: Authorizations of virginity in late antique Gaul’, in Philip Rousseau and Manolis Papoutsakis (eds.), Transformations of Late Antiquity (Aldershot, 2009), pp. 303–26. Cooper, Fall. See for example Toubert, ‘La Théorie’, p. 281; Wemple, Women, pp. 97–106; Heene, Legacy, pp. 68–113. I discuss this further in Stone, ‘In what way’.

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Men and morality sexual diference was divinely ordained and eternal.Western Christianity, from the fourth century onwards, held that sexual diference survived even in resurrected bodies.132 Scripture and Christian tradition authorised husbands to control their wives, and clerics to control the laity, and also irmly categorised women as the ‘weaker vessel’. The Carolingian model of the count and of lesser secular oicials, meanwhile, saw them as centrally appointed functionaries, serving the res publica and, as public oice-holders, necessarily male.133 In contrast, a less Roman sense of oice and an ideology that saw countship as inherited allowed ‘lordly’ women to lourish in eleventh-century France.134 The realities of early medieval life also meant that the vulnerable, who included most women, needed male protection in order to escape oppression from the powerful. Even noblewomen could be vulnerable once widowed.135 In such a society, male dominance over women within each social class was easily ensured, even if powerful women might be allowed to rule men of lesser status. In contrast to the civilian secular elite of Roman times, the militarised Frankish lay nobility had much less need for a discourse explaining the natural unsuitability of women to wield power. As a result, Carolingian texts show relatively low levels of misogyny, compared to those of late antiquity and the central Middle Ages.136 Political culture and masculinity If the usefulness of women in the reform movement placed at least some constraints on what could be said about them, the political aims of Carolingian rulers had an even greater efect on the moral and gender rhetoric around elite men. Unlike in later colonial empires, Frankish rulers intended the elite from conquered regions to be fully integrated into the political and social world of the Franks; they also wished to bind the localities more closely into central power.137 As a result, political thought stressed the unity of society and the need for co-operation between clerical and lay ordines.138 The importance of celebratory religious and secular rituals in such uniication has long been recognised.139 More recent research has also pointed out the signiicance 132 134

135 137 139

Brown, Body and Society, pp. 382–4. 133 See Chapter 5, p. 148. Kimberly LoPrete, ‘The domain of lordly women in France, ca. 1050–1250’, Medieval Feminist Forum 44 (2008), 13–35. See Chapter 5, p. 148. 136 Heene, Legacy, pp. 265–78. See Chapter 5, p. 147. 138 See Chapter 2, p. 60. See in particular Janet L. Nelson, ‘The Lord’s anointed and the people’s choice: Carolingian royal ritual’, in David Cannadine and Simon Price (eds.), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 137–80.

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Carolingian reform and gender of shared rituals of atonement. Abigail Firey and Mayke de Jong have shown the development in the Carolingian period of an ideology of confession and penitence, in which the ruling class saw their collective moral status before God as immediately relected in triumphs or disasters.140 Practices of communal fasts and earnest self-examination were already part of Charlemagne’s tools of government, even if their full development came only in Louis the Pious’ reign.141 Such communal expressions of guilt may have played an important role in bonding together the elite, especially in newly acquired territories, such as Bavaria.142 The technique of admonitio (warning others of the dangers of sin) relied similarly on a framework in which carefully modulated criticism was encouraged by elite men in order to create a shared sense of moral improvement.143 Few moralists wrote as conscious ‘outsiders’, alienated from the centres of power;144 instead, admonition could be used as a way of gaining favour at court.145 Such factors encouraged but also constrained moral discourses. One important model of kingship, for example, portrayed the ruler as patriarch of a kingdom-wide familia.146 This may have been more politically acceptable in a moral culture that dissociated masculinity from domination. Nobles could be subjects without thereby having their gender status imperilled. Some imperial states, such as nineteenth-century Britain, made considerable use of a discourse of femininity about subjugated nations.147 In contrast, Carolingian texts do not stress the ‘femaleness’ of conquered regions or their inhabitants. Nor was there much expression of a view that defeat in battle was itself a sign of unmanliness. Once Saxon noblemen, for example, had been acculturated and Christianised, and were thus able to ight ‘manfully’, their armies could relatively easily be absorbed into the Carolingian project of expansion.148 More generally, public discourse over moral failures had to be carefully controlled. Mayke de Jong has commented on the ine line between acceptable admonitio and unacceptable recrimination (increpatio).149 The sharing of guilt was an important way to prevent moral language becoming divisive. In contrast, it was a potentially destructive move within the ‘penitential state’ to blame one particular group of the elite for all the ills 140 142 144 146 148

149

Firey, ‘Blushing’; de Jong, Penitential State. 141 Nelson, ‘Voice’, pp. 81–2. Firey, ‘Useful guilt’, pp. 25–7. 143 De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 5, 112–42. Scharf, Die Kämpfe, pp. 83–4, 89–90. 145 See de Jong, Penitential State, pp. 142–6. Nelson, ‘Kingship and empire’, pp. 59–62. 147 Tosh, ‘What should historians’, p. 197. For one example of how young Saxon men might be acculturated, see Nelson, ‘Charlemagne and empire’ on Saxon hostages. On the restriction of ‘manly’ behaviour to Christian armies, see Chapter 3, pp. 88–9. De Jong, Penitential State, pp. 142–7.

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Men and morality of society, setting in motion a train of accusations and counter-accusations. Louis the Pious’ rule faltered when important lay magnates (Matfrid of Orléans and Hugh of Tours) were scapegoated for the empire’s problems.150 In contrast, after 834 order was restored partly by blaming the trauma of Louis’ deposition on the devil and also on Ebbo of Rheims, neither of whom had any prominent Frankish supporters.151 The maintenance of cohesion among the Carolingian elite relied on a careful balancing act of interests when discussing morality. Jonas of Orléans and Hincmar were two of the strongest proponents of the superiority of the clerical ordo over the laity, but both also wrote lay mirrors, demonstrating the potential moral virtue of noble laymen. Jonas, in particular, emphasised the complementary functions of the lay and clerical ordines.152 Mayke de Jong, meanwhile, argues that the ideology of clerical purity could not be pushed too far, lest it split the priestly ordo and undermined the authority of parish clergy.153 Part of this balance also seems to have involved lay and clerical magnates not publicly questioning the masculinity of their opponents, judging by the lack of political polemics using such topoi. T h e e nd of the Caroli ng i an con se n su s The constructed nature of ‘crises of masculinity’ means that it is too simple to see the Carolingian period as simply relecting a ‘golden age’ of untroubled masculinity. Instead, Carolingian public discourse deliberately attempted to downplay the rivalries between elite male social groups that drove much of the rhetoric of crisis in other periods. An interesting example of how such attempts to damp down gendered attacks might work in practice is seen in the Vita Ganguli. The story, of a holy man killed by his wife and her clerical lover, is inherently divisive.Yet the wish to celebrate a lay saint muted the writer’s urge to indulge fully in the misogyny of the tale. If women were intrinsically evil, Gangulf would appear a fool for marrying, and lay life must itself be lawed by deinition. Instead, Gangulf ’s wife’s greatest fault becomes not adultery and murder, but a failure to appreciate the virtue of her husband.154 The Vita Ganguli dates from the end of the Carolingian era, and already suggests a declining interest by reformers in the moral education of noble laymen. Such a decline seems to have begun after the 840s, despite earlier success in creating a morally self-conscious lay elite.155 Lay 150 153 154 155

Ibid., pp. 38–9. 151 Ibid., pp. 252–62. 152 Sot, ‘Concordances’, p. 351. De Jong, ‘Imitatio morum’, p. 59. I discuss this aspect in more detail in Stone, ‘Masculinity without conlict’. Stone, ‘Rise and fall’.

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The end of the Carolingian consensus nobles who were both well-educated and concerned with their moral state, such as Eberhard of Friuli and Eccard of Mâcon are still seen after the mid ninth century, but Carolingian moralists were less interested in engaging with them. Unlike Alcuin, Paulinus or Jonas, a number of later reformers, such as Hrabanus Maurus, Hincmar and Notker concentrated their role as moral educators on kings and clerics, rather than laymen. Indeed Hrabanus speciically warned Eberhard against the perils of studying too deeply with the controversial theologian Gottschalk, while Hincmar sneered at the intellectual pretensions of Count Conrad of Argengau.156 While the irst generations of Carolingian reformers had seen educating the laity as a means to their moral improvement, Gangulf ’s vita describes his superior moral virtue as a cause of his becoming welleducated, rather than as a consequence of it.157 The close connections between Carolingian reformers, kings and noble laymen also gradually became weakened. The success of the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ meant that cultural activities became dispersed into a variety of ecclesiastical centres, rather than simply centring on the court.158 The second half of the ninth century saw religious intellectuals appear with fewer court connections than before. Unlike Walahfrid Strabo in the 820s, men such as Heiric of Auxerre and Martin the Irishman did not see the need to become courtiers in order to advance their careers as scholars.159 Notker, too, despite his concern to write about and for Carolingian rulers, remained irmly within his monastery.160 Charles the Bald was still interested in intellectual activity, and keen to exploit cultural products for his own ends.161 Yet while royal courts continued as political centres, their key role as places of interaction between lay noblemen and moral reformers probably gradually diminished. Other occasions for moral collaboration between secular and religious elites also gradually lost their signiicance. Capitularies were not produced in east Francia after the reign of Louis the Pious; the last ‘capitulary-like’ document in the MGH volumes from anywhere in the Frankish empire dates from 920.162 There was also a decline in the importance of church councils in the tenth century. In west Francia the last council we know to have issued canons was Trosly in 909; there were no signiicant papal 156

157 159

160 162

Kershaw, ‘Eberhard’, pp. 94–6; AB 862, p. 60; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Charles le Chauve et les utilisations du savoir’, in Iogna-Prat, Jeudy and Lobrichon, L’Ecole carolingienne, Entretiens d’Auxerre, 1989 (Paris, 1991), pp. 37–54, at p. 45. Stone, ‘Rise and fall’, pp. 374–5. 158 Nelson, ‘Charles le Chauve’, p. 37. On these men, see John J. Contreni, ‘The pursuit of knowledge in Carolingian Europe’, in Richard E. Sullivan (ed.), ‘The gentle voices of teachers’: Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age (Columbus, OH, 1995), pp. 106–41, at pp. 127–30. Notker 1:30, 1:34, pp. 41, 47. 161 Nelson, ‘Charles le Chauve’, pp. 46–9. Karoli III capitula de Tungrensi episcopatu proposita, MGH Cap. ii:290, pp. 378–81.

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Men and morality councils in the irst half of the tenth century. More of a Carolingian tradition of councils continued in the eastern half of the empire, but the numbers of councils held still shows a decline.163 Kings themselves became less interested in reform: the acute theological concerns shown by Charles the Bald’s interventions on the question of predestination, or the commissioning of biblical exegesis by Lothar I and Louis the German, were not continued by their successors.164 After 888, Carolingian rule was itself successfully challenged, and the Frankish empire fragmented into a number of diferent components, never again to be reunited. A few non-Carolingian rulers continued in the Carolingian imperial tradition of public moralising, but most were more urgently concerned with safeguarding their own position than the moral uplift of society as whole.165 The confused political situation, and the disappearance of some of the institutions that had supported the Carolingian reform programme, did not mean the end of concern for social morality. East of the Rhine, for example, Regino of Prüm’s synodal handbook, summarising conciliar material for use during episcopal visitations, shows a keen concern to regulate the correct behaviour of clergy and laity at the parish level.166 Patrick Corbet has demonstrated the continued inluence in Germany of Carolingian ideas on incestuous marriage for most of the tenth century.167 Several tenth-century Italian authors, meanwhile, wrote extensively on moral behaviour for men.168 Yet after the Carolingian period, sustained collaboration between rulers, churchmen and noble laymen became less common. Phyllis Jestice describes the early-tenth-century reformed monks as ‘the irst irmly self-motivated reforming group in the medieval church’.169 My suggestion that the lack of Carolingian gender crises was due to a careful balancing act among the elite is conirmed by the rapid re-emergence of gendered political discourses in this post-Carolingian world. In the works of Odo of Cluny, for example, a late antique monastic discourse reappears that emphasises preserving chastity as a battle.170 163 164

165

166 169

170

Hartmann, Die Synoden, pp. 1–2. On predestination see David Ganz, ‘The debate on predestination’, in Margaret T. Gibson and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom (Aldershot, 1990), pp. 283–302; on exegesis see de Jong, ‘Empire as ecclesia’. See for example Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, pp. 170–1; Geofrey Koziol, ‘Is Robert I in hell? The diploma for Saint-Denis and the mind of a rebel king (Jan. 25, 923)’, Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006), 233–67. See Chapter 2, p. 62. 167 Corbet, Autour, p. 77. 168 Balzaretti, ‘Men and sex’. Phyllis G. Jestice, ‘Why celibacy? Odo of Cluny and the development of a new sexual morality’, in Frassetto, Medieval Purity, pp. 81–115, at p. 81. Karras, ‘Thomas Aquinas’, pp. 56–9.

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The end of the Carolingian consensus An ideology that made strength of will the standard of masculinity, demonstrated partly by avoiding sexual activity, automatically labelled the vast majority of laymen with active sexual lives as weak.171 Odo’s Vita Geraldi also shows this new uneasiness about key aspects of lay noblemen’s lives. The work has often been taken as a point of departure, creating a new ideal for Christian laymen.172 Yet unlike earlier Carolingian moralists, who had seen a moral life as compatible with marriage and the use of arms, Odo of Cluny shows Gerald trying to avoid both warfare and sexual activity. The result was to produce a model less relevant to existing lay noble lifestyles than the lay mirrors had been.173 Odo does, however, create a model of saintliness that included the possession of secular power and personal wealth, and in this shows continuity with Carolingian texts. Further rifts before groups of elite men were encouraged by Odo’s new focus on the dangers of sodomy. Denouncing rival men or groups of men as sodomites became a common political tactic from the mid tenth century onwards.174 Nor were homosexual smears the only ones used. Liutprand of Cremona’s notorious portrayals of lewd women in the 960s were used by him to symbolise the moral failures of Otto I’s rivals in Italy; allegations of improper female conduct had once again become an important way of attacking the masculinity of the men who should have controlled them.175 A second version of Gangulf ’s story from around the same date, by Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, abandons the original version’s positive treatment of the lay lifestyle. Instead, Hrotsvit portrays Gangulf as forced reluctantly into marriage by his friends, and as a man who (like Gerald of Aurillac) triumphed in bloodless victories.176 Religious authors had apparently abandoned a view of ordinary lay life as morally worthy. The Gregorian reform movement in the eleventh century was marked by increased competition between elite groups for true masculinity, and the reuse of rhetorical tropes familiar from fourth-century battles over asceticism. As Conrad Leyser comments: ‘Reform begins when monks accuse bishops of being susceptible to womanly inluence.’177 In turn, bishops stressed their own manliness, while eleventh- and twelfth171 172

173 174 176

Ibid., p. 54. See for example Poulin, L’Idéal, pp. 81–98; Friedrich Lotter,‘Das Idealbild adliger Laienfrömmigkeit in den Anfängen Clunys: Odos Vita des Grafen Gerald von Aurillac’, in W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (eds.), Benedictine Culture 750–1050, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series 1, Studia 11 (Leuven, 1983), pp. 76–95. See Airlie, ‘Anxiety’; Barbero, ‘Santi laici’, pp. 131–6. See Chapter 9, pp. 297–8. 175 Balzaretti, ‘Men and sex’, pp. 154–7. Goullet, ‘Vies’, p. 250. 177 Leyser, ‘Custom’, p. 90.

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Men and morality century clerical reformers denounced efeminate court culture.178 The idea of chastity as a struggle became increasingly important in the twelfth century, as an ideal intended for all clerics, religious and secular.179 At the same time, some writers, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, attacked the chivalrous lifestyle of the noble layman as intrinsically immoral. Noblemen had to choose between two conlicting models of masculinity. Secular and spiritual value systems had become harder to reconcile by the High Middle Ages.180 Carolingian reformers, in order to inspire a wide-ranging change in society, had held out the prospect of masculinity for all those prepared to live a moral life, whether lay or religious, male or female. Once this speciic moment of collaboration between elites had ended, however, the doors of heaven were no longer left so wide open for lay noblemen. Instead, true masculinity once again reverted to being the keenly fought prize between diferent groups of powerful men. 178

179 180

See for example Maureen C. Miller, ‘Masculinity, reform, and clerical culture: Narratives of episcopal holiness in the Gregorian era’, Church History 72 (2003), 25–52; Kueler, ‘Male friendship’, pp. 162–5. Karras, ‘Thomas Aquinas’, pp. 58–61. Karl Bosl, ‘Leitbilder und Wertvorstellungen des Adels von der Merowingerzeit bis zur Höhe der feudalen Gesellschaft’, in Harald Scholler (ed.), The Epic in Medieval Society: Aesthetic and Moral Values (Tübingen, 1977), pp. 18–36, at pp. 34–6.

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BIB LIOGR APHY

P rimary s ource s Note: I have not listed all the editions and translations available: the emphasis has been on those I have used during the writing of this book and recent translations of Carolingian material. Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés, Bella Parisiacae urbis, ed. and trans. Henri Waquet, Abbon: Le Siège de Paris par les Normands, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 20 (Paris, 1942) English translation: Nirmal Dass, Viking Attacks on Paris: The ‘Bella Parisiacae urbis’ of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Paris, 2007) Agobard, De baptismo manciporum Iudaeorum, ed. L.Van Acker, in Agobard Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 115–17 De iniusticiis, ed. L. Van Acker, in Agobard Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 225–7 Liber apologeticus, ed. L. Van Acker, in Agobard Lugdunensis opera omnia, CCCM 52 (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 309–19 Aimoin of St Germain-des-Prés, Translatio Vincentii levitae et martyris, PL 126, cols. 1011–27 Alcuin, Ad pueros sancti Martini, ed. Michael S. Driscoll, ‘“Ad pueros sancti Martini”: A critical edition, English translation, and study of the manuscript tradition’, Traditio 53 (1998), 37–62 Carmina, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 169–351 De virtutibus et vitiis liber, introduction and conclusion ed. Ernst Dümmler, Alcuin, Epistola 305, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 464–5. Chapters 1–26: PL 101, cols. 613–32. Chapters 27–35 from Troyes 1742, printed in Paul Szarmach, ‘The Latin tradition of Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, cap. xxvii–xxxv, with special reference to Vercelli Homily xx’, Mediaevalia 12 (1989), pp. 13–41 Epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 18–481 Partial English translation: Stephen Allott, Alcuin of York c. AD 762 to 804: His Life and Letters (York, 1974) Ambrose, De Abraham, ed. Karl Schenkl, Sancti Ambrosii opera. Pars prima, CSEL 32:1 (Vienna, 1897), pp. 501–638 De Joseph, ed. Karl Schenkl, Sancti Ambrosii opera. Pars altera, CSEL 32:2 (Vienna, 1897), pp. 73–122 De oiciis, ed. Maurice Testard, CCSL 15 (Turnhout, 2000)

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Bibliography Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, ed. M. Adriaen, Sancti Ambrosii Mediolanensis opera. Pars IV, CCSL 14 (Turnhout, 1957), pp. 1–400 Expositio psalmi cxviii, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 62 (Vienna, 1913) Ambrosiaster, Ad Corinthos prima, ed. Heinrich Joseph Vogels, Commentarius in Epistulas Paulinas. Pars ii: In Epistulas ad Corinthos, CSEL 81–2 (Vienna, 1964), pp. 3–194 Angelbert, Versus de bella quae fuit acta Fontaneto, in PCR, pp. 262–5 The Anglo-Saxon chronicles, trans. Michael Swanton, rev. edn (London, 2000) Annales Bertiniani, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SRG 5 (Hanover, 1883) English translation: Janet L. Nelson, The Annals of St-Bertin, Ninth-Century Histories 1 (Manchester, 1991) Annales Engolismenses, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz, MGH SS 16 (Hanover, 1859), pp. 485–6. Annales Fuldenses, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG 7 (Hanover, 1891) English translation:Timothy Reuter, The Annals of Fulda. Ninth-Century Histories 2 (Manchester, 1992) Annales mettenses priores, ed. B. de Simson, MGH SRG 10 (Hanover, 1905) Partial English translation: Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding, Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography 640–720 (Manchester, 1996), pp. 350–70 Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG 6 (Hanover, 1895) Partial English translations: Bernhard Walter Scholz, Carolingian Chronicles: ‘Royal Frankish Annals’ and Nithard’s ‘Histories’ (Ann Arbor, 1970), pp. 37–125; P. D. King, Charlemagne:Translated Sources (Lambrigg, 1987), pp. 74–131 Annales Vedastini, ed. B. de Simson, Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, MGH SRG 12 (Hanover, 1909), pp. 40–82 Annales Xantenses, ed. B. de Simson, Annales Xantenses et Annales Vedastini, MGH SRG 12 (Hanover, 1909), pp. 1–33 Ardo, Vita Benedicti abbatis Anianensis et Indensis, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS 15:1 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 200–20 English translation: Allen Cabaniss, ‘The life of Saint Benedict, abbot of Aniane and Inde’, in Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head (eds.), Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints’ Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), pp. 215–54 Asser, De rebus gestis Aelfredi, ed.William Henry Stevenson, Asser’s ‘Life of King Alfred’: Together with the ‘Annals of Saint Neots’ Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford, 1959) English translation: Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser’s ‘Life of King Alfred’ and Other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), pp. 67–110 Astronomer, Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. and trans. Ernst Tremp, Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG 64 (Hanover, 1995), pp. 280–555 English translations: Allen Cabaniss, Son of Charlemagne: A Contemporary Life of Louis the Pious (Syracuse, 1961); Thomas F. X. Noble, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: The Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer (University Park, PA, 2009), pp. 226–302

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Bibliography Augustine of Hippo, De bono coniugali, ed. Joseph Zycha, Sancti Aurelii Augustini opera, Sectio 5, pars 3, CSEL 41 (Vienna, 1900), pp. 187–230 De civitate Dei, ed. Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, 2 vols., CCSL 47–8 (Turnhout, 1955) English translation: Henry Bettenson, St Augustine: ‘Concerning the City of God against the Pagans’ (Harmondsworth, 1972) Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. Eligius Dekkers and Jean Fraipont, 3 vols., CCSL 38–40 (Turnhout, 1956) Enchiridion, ed. M. P. J. Van den Hout, et al., Aurelii Augustini opera. Pars 13, 2, CCSL 46 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 49–114 Epistulae, ed. A. Goldbacher, 4 vols., CSEL 34, 44, 57–8 (Vienna, 1895–1911) Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, ed. Jean Fraipont, Aurelii Augustini opera. Pars 5, CCSL 33 (Turnhout, 1958), pp. 1–377 Sermones, PL 38–9 Sermones de vetere testamento (1–50), ed. Cyrille Lambot, CCSL 41 (Turnhout, 1961) Bede, In epistolas septem catholicas, ed. David Hurst, Bedae venerabilis opera. Pars II, 4: Opera exegetica, CCSL 121 (Turnhout, 1983), pp. 181–342 In Lucae evangelium expositio, ed. David Hurst, Bedae venerabilis opera. Pars II, 3: Opera exegetica, CCSL 120 (Turnhout, 1983), pp. 5–425 Benedict of Nursia, Regula sancti Benedicti, ed. Jean Neufville, La Règle de Saint Benoît, 2 vols., Sources chrétiennes 181–2 (Paris, 1972) Beowulf, trans. Michael Alexander (Harmondsworth, 1973) Bernard of Clairvaux, De laude novae militiae, ed. J. Leclercq and H.-M. Rochais, Sancti Bernardi opera.Vol 3:Tractatus et opuscula (Rome, 1963), pp. 213–39 Boniface, Epistolae, ed. Michael Tangl, Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, Epistolae selectae in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae Historicis separatim editae 1 (Berlin, 1916) English translation: Ephraim Emerton, The Letters of St Boniface (New York, 2000) Burchard of Worms, Decretorum libri viginti, PL 140, cols. 541–1058 Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, ed. Germain Morin, 2 vols., CCSL 103–4 (Turnhout, 1953) Cammarosano, Paolo, ‘La disciplina della uita sessuale nel mondo carolingio’, in Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell’alto medioevo, Settimane, 53 (Spoleto, 2006), pp. 817–36 Capitula episcoporum, ed. Peter Brommer, et al., MGH Leges nat. Germ., 4 vols. (Hanover, 1984–2005) Capitulare generale Caroli Magni 813, ed. Hubert Mordek and Gerhard Schmitz, ‘Neue Kapitularien und Kapitulariensammlungen’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 43 (1987), 361–439 Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause, MGH Leges, Sectio ii, 2 vols. (Hanover, 1883–97) Carmen de Timone comite, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. ii (Berlin, 1884), pp. 120–4 Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques, ed. Gustave Desjardins (Paris, 1879) Cassiodori-Epiphanii historia ecclesiastica tripartita: Historiae ecclesiasticae ex Socrate, Sozomeno et Theodorito, ed. Walter Jacob, CSEL 71 (Vienna, 1952) Cathwulf, Epistola, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 502–5 La Chanson de Roland, ed. Frederick Whitehead and T. D. Hemming (Bristol, 1993)

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Bibliography English translation: Dorothy. L. Sayers, The Song of Roland (Harmondsworth, 1957) Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide, ed. Mario Roques, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes édités d’après la copie de Guiot (Bibl. nat., fr. 794) 1 (Paris, 1955) English translation: W. W. Comfort, Arthurian Romances (London, 1975), pp. 1–90. Cicero, De oiciis, trans. P. G. Walsh, Cicero: On Obligations (Oxford, 2000) Codex Carolinus, ed. W. Gundlach, MGH Epp. 3 (Berlin, 1892), pp. 109–45 Concilia, ed. Friedrich Maassen, et al., MGH Leges, Sectio III (Hanover, 1893–) Concilia Africae a. 345–a. 525, ed. C. Munier, CCSL 149 (Turnhout, 1974) De conversione Saxonum carmen, ed. and trans. Susan A. Rabe, Faith, Art, and Politics at Saint-Riquier:The Symbolic Vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 62–6 De Pippini regis victoria avarica, in PCR, pp. 186–91 Dhuoda, Liber manualis, ed. and trans. Marcelle Thiébaux, Dhuoda: Handbook for Her Warrior Son: ‘Liber manualis’, Cambridge Medieval Classics 8 (Cambridge, 1998) Edictus Rothari, ed. Friedrich Bluhme and Alfred Boretius, Leges Langobardorum, MGH Leges iv (Hanover, 1868), pp. 3–90 Einhard, Epistolae, ed. K. Hampe, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 109–45 English translations: Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Peterborough, ON, 1993), pp. 283–310; Paul Edward Dutton, Charlemagne’s Courtier:The Complete Einhard (Toronto, 1998), pp. 131–165 Translatio et miracula SS. Marcellini et Petri auctore Einhardo, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS 15:1 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 239–64 English translations: Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Peterborough, ON, 1993), pp. 198–246; Paul Edward Dutton, Charlemagne’s Courtier:The Complete Einhard (Toronto, 1998), pp. 69–130 Vita Karoli Magni, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG 25 (Hanover, 1911) English translations: Lewis Thorpe, Einhard and Notker the Stammerer: Two Lives of Charlemagne (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 49–90; Paul Edward Dutton, Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Toronto, 1998), pp. 15–39; Thomas F. X. Noble, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: The Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer (University Park, PA, 2009), pp. 21–50 Epistolae variorum Carolo Magno regnante scriptae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895), pp. 496–567 Ermoldus Nigellus, Ad eundem Pippinum, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932), pp. 218–33 Ad Pippinum regem, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932), pp. 202–17 In honorem Hludovicii Pii, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Ermold le Noir: Poème sur Louis le Pieux et épitres au roi Pépin, Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 14 (Paris, 1932), pp. 2–201 English translation: Thomas F. X. Noble, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: The Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus,Thegan, and the Astronomer (University Park, PA, 2009), pp. 127–86

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Bibliography Ex vita S. Deicoli, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS 15:2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 674–82 Flodoard of Rheims, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, ed. Martina Stratmann, MGH SS 36 (Hanover, 1998) Formulae Merowingici et Karolini aevi, ed. Karl Zeumer, MGH Leges, Sectio V (Hanover, 1886) Freculf of Lisieux, Historiarum libri xii, ed. Michael I. Allen, CCCM 169a (Turnhout, 2002) Fredegar, Chronicon, ed. and trans. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with Its Continuation (London, 1960) Gesta sanctorum patrum coenobii Fontanellensis, ed. and trans. Pascal Pradié, Chronique des abbés de Fontanelle (Saint-Wandrille), Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 40 (Paris, 1999) Godman, Peter (ed.), Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) Gosbert, Gosberti carmen acrostichum, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 620–2 Gregory of Tours, Historiarum libri x, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM i, 1 (Hanover, 1937) English translation: Lewis Thorpe, The History of the Franks (Harmondsworth, 1974) Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, ed. M. Adriaen, 2 vols., CCSL 143a–b (Turnhout, 1979) Registrum epistolarum, ed. Paul Ewald and Ludwig M. Hartmann, 2 vols., MGH Epp. 1–2 (Berlin, 1887–99) Regula pastoralis, ed. and trans. Floribert Rommel and Charles Morel, Grégoire le Grand: ‘Règle pastorale’, 2 vols., Sources chrétiennes 382 (Paris, 1992) English translation: Henry Davis, St Gregory the Great: ‘Pastoral Care’, Ancient Christian Writers 11 (Westminster, MD, 1950) Haimo of Auxerre, Commentariorum in Isaiam libri tres, PL 116, cols. 713–1086. Homiliarum sive concionum ad plebem in evangelia de tempore et sanctis, PL 118, cols. 9–816. Haito of Basel, Capitula, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH Cap. episc. 1 (Hanover, 1984), pp. 209–19 Heito, Heitonis visio Wettini, MGH Poet. ii (Berlin, 1884), pp. 267–75 Hibernicus Exul, Hos Karoli regi versus Hibernicus Exul, in PCR, pp. 174–9. Hincmar of Rheims, Ad Carolum III imperatorum ut Ludovici Balbi sobrini sui iliis regibus idoneos educatores et consiliarios constituat, PL 125, cols. 989–94 Ad episcopos regni admonitio altera: Pro Carolomanno rege apud Sparnacum facta, PL 125, cols. 1007–18 Capitula in Synodo apud S. Macram, PL 125, cols. 1029–86 De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, ed. Doris Nachtmann, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 16 (Munich, 1998) De coercendo et exstirpando raptu viduarum, puellarum ac sanctimonialium, PL 125, cols. 1017–36 De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, ed. Letha Böhringer, MGH Conc. 4, Supplementum 1 (Hanover, 1992) De ordine palatii, ed. and trans. Thomas Gross and Rudolf Schiefer, MGH Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum separatim editi 3 (Hanover, 1980) English translation: Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Peterborough, ON, 1993), pp. 485–99.

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Bibliography De regis persona et regio ministerio, PL 125, cols. 833–56 Epistolae 1–206, ed. Ernst Perels, MGH Epp. 8 (Berlin, 1939) Epistolae i–lv, PL 126, cols. 9–280 Novi regis instructio ad rectam regni administrationem, PL 125, cols. 983–90 Hincmar, Libellus expostulationis, Council of Douzy 871, MGH Conc. 4:37 b, pp. 420-87 Hrabanus Maurus, Commentariorum in Genesim libri quatuor, PL 107, cols. 439–670 Commentariorum in Matthaeum libri octo, PL 107, cols. 727–1156 De procinctv Romanae miliciae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, Neue Folge 3 (1872), pp. 443–51 Epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 381–516 Poenitentiale, PL 110, cols. 471–94 Partial edition also as Epistola 56, MGH Epp. 5, pp. 509–14 Poenitentium liber ad Otgarium, PL 112, cols. 1397–424 Partial edition also as Epistola 32, MGH Epp. 5 pp. 462–5 Hucbald, Vita sanctae Rictrudis, PL 132, cols. 827–48 English translation: Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halborg and E. Gordon Whatley, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham, NC, 1992), pp. 195–219 Isidorus of Seville, Etymologiarvm sive originvm libri xx [Etymologiae], ed.W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911) Isidore Hispalensis Sententiae, ed. Pierre Cazier, CCSL 111 (Turnhout, 1998) Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, PL 23, cols. 205–338. Commentariorum in epistolam ad Titum, PL 26, cols. 555–600 Commentariorum in Hiezechielem libri XIV, ed. Franciscus Glorie, CCSL 75 (Turnhout, 1964) Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV, ed. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen, CCSL 77 (Turnhout, 1969) Epistulae, ed. Isidore Hilberg, 3 vols., CSEL 54–6 (Vienna, 1910–18) John VIII, Pope, Fragmenta registri Iohannis VIII papae, ed. E. Caspar, MGH Epp. 7 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 273–312 Registrum Iohannis VIII papae, ed. E. Caspar, MGH Epp. 7 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 1–272 Jonas of Orléans, De institutione laicali, PL 106, cols. 121–278 De institutione regia, ed. and trans. Alain Dubreucq, Jonas d’Orléans, ‘Le Métier de roi’, Sources chrétiennes 407 (Paris, 1995) English translation: R. W. Dyson, A Ninth-Century Political Tract: The ‘De institutione regia’ of Jonas of Orleans (Smithtown, NY, 1983) Historia translationis sancti Hucberti, PL 106, cols. 389–94 Josephus, De bello iudaico, ed. Benedict Niese, Flavia Iosephi Opera, Vol. VI (Berlin, 1894) Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 366–79 Partial English translation: PCR, pp. 196–207 Koeniger, A. M., Die Militärseelsorge der Karolingerzeit: Ihr Recht und ihre Praxis, Veröfentlichungen aus dem Kirchenhistorischen Seminar München, 4th series 7, Anhang 2–3 (Munich, 1918), pp. 68–74 Leo IV, Pope, Epistolae selecta Leonis IV, ed. A. de Hirsch-Gereuth, MGH Epp. 5 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 585–614 Libellus miraculorum Sancti Bertini, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 15:1 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 509–16

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Bibliography Liber historiae Francorum, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 238–328 Louis the Pious, Diplomata, PL 104, cols. 979–1309 Lupus of Ferrières, Epistolae, ed. and trans. Léon Levillian, Loup de Ferrières: Correspondence, 2 vols., Les Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen âge 10, 16 (Paris, 1927–35) English translation: Graydon W. Regenos, The Letters of Lupus of Ferrières (The Hague, 1966) Giovanni Domenico Mansi, et al. (eds.), Sacrorum conciliorum: Nova et amplissima collectio, 53 vols. (Graz, 1960–1) Maximus of Turin, Sermonum collectio antiqua, nonnullis sermonibus extravagantibus adiectis, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher, CCSL 23 (Turnhout, 1962) Nicholas I, Pope, Epistolae, ed. E. Perels, MGH Epp. 6 (Berlin, 1925), pp. 267–90. Nithard, Historiarum libri IIII, ed. Ernst Müller, MGH SRG 44 (Hanover, 1907) English translation: Bernhard Walter Scholz, Carolingian Chronicles: ‘Royal Frankish Annals’ and Nithard’s ‘Histories’ (Ann Arbor, 1970), pp. 129–74 Notker Balbulus, Gesta Karoli Magni imperatoris, ed. Hans F. Haefele, MGH SRG, n.s. 12 (Berlin, 1959), pp. 93–172 English translations: Lewis Thorpe, Einhard and Notker the Stammerer: Two Lives of Charlemagne (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 93–172; Thomas F. X. Noble, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious:The Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus,Thegan, and the Astronomer (University Park, PA, 2009), pp. 59–118 Odo of Cluny, Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis, PL 133, cols. 639–710 English translation: Gerard Sitwell, ‘The life of Saint Gerald of Aurillac’, in Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head (eds.), Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints’ Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), pp. 295–362 Pactus legis Salicae, ed. Karl August Eckhardt, MGH Leges nat. Germ. iv.1 (Hanover, 1962) English translation: Katherine Fisher Drew, The Laws of the Salian Franks (Philadelphia, 1991), pp. 59–167 Paschasius Radbertus, Epitaphium Arsenii, PL 120, cols. 1557–1650 English translation: Allen Cabaniss, Charlemagne’s Cousins: Contemporary Lives of Adalard and Wala (Syracuse, 1967), pp. 83–204 Vita sancti Adalhardi, PL 120, cols. 1507–56 English translation: Allen Cabaniss, Charlemagne’s Cousins: Contemporary Lives of Adalard and Wala (Syracuse, 1967), pp. 25–82 Paulinus of Aquileia, Carmina, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 126–48 Contra Felicem libri tres, ed. Dag Norberg, CCCM 95 (Turnhout, 1990) Epistolae, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4 (Berlin, 1895) pp. 516–27 Liber exhortationis, PL 99, cols. 197–282 Pippini, Carlomanni, Caroli Magni diplomata, ed. Engelbert Mühlbacher, et al., MGH Dip. Kar. 1 (Hanover, 1906) Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, ed. Ernst Dümmler, et al., 4 vols. (Berlin, 1881–1923) Pseudo-Cyrian, Pseudo-Cyprianus: De XII abusivis saeculi, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur, 3. Reihe, Bd. 4, Heft 1 (Leipzig, 1909)

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Bibliography Radulf of Bourges, Capitula, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH Cap. episc. 1 (Hanover, 1984), pp. 233–68 Rather of Verona, Praeloquia, ed. Peter L. D. Reid, et al., in Praeloquiorum libri vi, Phrenesis, Dialogus confessionalis, Exhortatio et preces, Pauca de vita Sancti Donatiani, Fragmenta nuper reperta, Glossae, CCCM 46a (Turnhout, 1984), pp. 3–186 English translation: Peter L. D. Reid, The Complete Works of Rather of Verona, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 76 (Binghamton, NY, 1991), pp. 21–208 Qualitatis coniectura cuiusdam, Ratherii utique Veronensis, ed. Peter L. D. Reid, in Ratherii Veronensis opera minora, CCCM 46 (Turnhout, 1976), pp. 117–32 English translation: Peter L. D. Reid, The Complete Works of Rather of Verona. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 76 (Binghamton, NY, 1991), pp. 427–42 Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, Roi de France, ed. Georges Tessier, 3 vols. (Paris, 1948–55) Regino of Prüm, Chronicon, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG 50 (Hanover, 1890) English translation: Simon MacLean, History and Politics in Late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe: The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg (Manchester, 2009) Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters 42 (Darmstadt, 2004) Sedulius Scottus, Carmina, MGH Poet. iii (Berlin, 1896), pp. 154–237 English translation: Edward Gerard Doyle, On Christian Rulers and the Poems, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 17 (Binghamton, NY, 1983), pp. 99–179 Liber de rectoribus christianis, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, in Sedulius Scottus, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters, Band 1, Heft 1 (Munich, 1906), pp. 1–91 English translation: Edward Gerard Doyle, On Christian Rulers and the Poems, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 17 (Binghamton, NY, 1983), pp. 51–94 Smaragdus, Via regia, PL 102, cols. 933–71 Sulpicius Severus, Vita sancti Martini Turonensis, ed. and trans. Jacques Fontaine, Sulpice Sévère:Vie de Saint Martin, 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes 133 (Paris, 1967–9) Thegan, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, ed. and trans. Ernst Tremp, in Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG 64 (Hanover, 1995), pp 167–278 English translations: Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Peterborough, ON, 1993), pp. 141–55; Thomas F. X. Noble, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious: The Lives by Einhard, Notker, Ermoldus, Thegan, and the Astronomer (University Park, PA, 2009), pp. 194–218 Theodulf , Capitulae, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH Cap. episc. 1 (Hanover, 1984), pp. 73–184 Carmina, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poet. i (Berlin, 1881), pp. 445–581 English translation: Nikolai A. Alexandrenko, ‘The poetry of Theodulf of Orleans: A translation and critical study’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Tulane University, 1970

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Bibliography Wormald, Patrick, ‘Bede, “Beowulf ” and the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy’, in Robert T. Farrell (ed.), Bede and Anglo-Saxon England: Papers in Honour of the 1,300th Anniversary of the Birth of Bede, Given at Cornell University in 1973 and 1974, BAR 46 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 32–95 ‘Introduction’, in Davies and Fouracre, Settlement, pp. 1–5 ‘Lex scripta and Verbum regis: Legislation and Germanic kingship, from Euric to Cnut’, in P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (eds.), Early Medieval Kingship (Leeds, 1977), pp. 105–38 The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century. Volume 1: Legislation and Its Limits (Oxford, 1999) Wormald, Patrick, and Janet L. Nelson (eds.), Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2007) Wynn, Phillip, ‘Wars and warriors in Gregory of Tours’ Histories i–iv’, Francia 28 (2001), 1–35 Zechiel-Eckes, Klaus, ‘Ein Blick in Pseudoisidors Werkstatt: Studien zum Entstehungsprozess der falschen Dekretalen. Mit einem exemplarischen editorischen Anhang (Pseudo-Julius an die orientalischen Bischöfe, JK † 196)’, Francia 28 (2001), 37–90 Ziolkowski, Jan M., ‘Of arms and the (Ger)man: Literary and material culture in the Waltharius’, in Davis and McCormick, Long Morning, pp. 193–208 Zotz, Thomas, ‘Grafschaftverfassung und Personengeschichte: Zu einem neuen Werk über das karolingerzeitliche Alemannian’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 136 (1988), 1–16 ‘Im Amt und Würden: Zur Eigenart “oizieller” Positionen im früheren Mittelalter’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 22 (1993), 1–23

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INDEX

Aachen, 136, 139 Aachen, Council of (836), 40 Aachen, Council of (860), 44, 257 Aachen, Council of (862), 305 Abbo, 54, 56 and costume, 238 and cowardice, 89 and Frankish identity, 88 and insults, 107 and mercy, 110 and nobility, 87, 88, 130 and sexual activity, 295 and social hierarchy, 122 and vengeance, 211 and warfare, 100, 101 Abbo, nobleman, 267, 276 abduction, see raptus abortion, 67 actors, 233 Adalard, seneschal, 140, 150 Adalbert of Metz, 140 Adalbert, warrior, 52 Adalhard of Corbie, 43, 45, 52, 122 Ademar, count, 52 admonitio, 43, 333 Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, 153, 154 Admonitio generalis, 5, 153, 162, 164, 169, 176, 271, 299 adulterous incest, 257, 260, 270, 305, 306 adultery, 202–4, 261, 296 moral norms, 290–2 terminology, 289–90 Agde, Council of (506), 182 Agobard of Lyon, 39, 43–4, 79, 81, 117, 140, 156, 165, 285, 308 Aimo of St-Germain-des-Prés, 320 Airlie, Stuart, 65, 137, 138, 148 Albgis, raptor, 277, 290

Alcuin, 2, 142 and alms-giving, 240, 241, 244 and avarice, 218, 300 and counsellors, 143, 145 and counts, 154 and courts, 139 and cowardice, 85 and fathers, 323 and food and drink, 239 and judges, 5, 164, 166 and laymen, 1 and masculinity, 317, 318, 319, 322 and mercy, 168 and nobility, 132 and peace, 80, 102 and perjury, 169 and pride, 124 and sexual activity, 281, 283, 284, 300 and social hierarchy, 213 and sodomy, 292 and spiritual warfare, 90 and unfree, 188 and vengeance, 211 and warfare, 74, 76, 102 and wealth, 217, 218, 231 De virtutibus et vitiis, 1, 5, 14, 65, 67, 311 letters, 25–6, 30, 38, 64 poetry, 54 Alfred, king, 99, 324 alms-giving, 235–6, 239–41, 243, 244 Althof , Gerd, 314, 315 Ambrose, 8, 144, 184, 208, 268, 286 Ancyra, Council of (314), 294, 295, 302 Andernach, 103, 105, 110, 219 Angelbert, 53, 95, 205 Angilbert, abbot of St-Riquier, 129 Anglo-Saxon literature, 89, 94, 98, 114, 188, 196, 198, 239 Annales Bertiniani, 49

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Index Annales Fuldenses, 49 and peace, 93 and warfare, 91, 103 Annales mettenses priores, 49 and warfare, 75 Annales regni Francorum, 48–9 Annales Vedastini, 50 Annales Xantenses, 48 annals, 48, 50, 69 Anton, Hans Hubert, 3, 42, 67, 80, 311 anxiety, see masculinity, crisis of Aquitanians, 58, 76, 77, 102 archery, see weapons aristocracy, see nobility Aristotle, 4 Arles, Council of (813), 155 armed followings, see lordship armies, 70–1, see also warfare Arno of Salzburg, 30, 74, 240 Arnulf, king, 251 assassination, see homicide assemblies, 60, 143 Astronomer, 51 and death in battle, 95 and nobility, 89, 131 and paganism, 75 Attigny, Council of (822), 177, 288 Augustine, 206 and alms-giving, 241 and avarice, 218 and marriage, 201, 202, 263, 285 and masculinity, 328 and peace, 81 and sexual activity, 184, 279, 283 and social hierarchy, 187, 219 and warfare, 72, 79, 82 and wealth, 233 Augustinism, political, 112 Aurell, Martin, 276 avarice, 104, 216, 218, 220, 300 Avars, 73–4, 81, 104, 106 Bachrach, David, 82 Bailey, Lisa, 330 Baldwin, count of Flanders, 251, 253, 276 bandits, 153, 155, 162, 170, 193 Barthélemy, Dominic, 87, 88 Basil, St, 29, 84, 252 Basques, 75, 102 Battle of Maldon, 98, 114, 124, 198 Bavarians, 75–6, 103, 266, 333 Becher, Matthias, 192 Benedict III, pope, 271 Benedict of Aniane, 241, 284 beneices, 223, 234, 235, 270 moral norms, 227–9

Bennett, Judith, 20 Benton, John, 98 Ben-Yehuda, Nachman, 13 Beowulf, 94 Bernard of Clairvaux, 338 Bernard of Septimania, 39, 109, 122, 139, 140, 141, 143, 156, 308 Bessmertny,Yuri, 217 bestiality, 35, 293–4, 295, 302, see also sexual activity, ‘unnatural’ betrothal, 252 Biblical models, 139, 312 alms-giving, 241 concubines, 184 counsellors, 145 fathers, 207, 208 justice, 166 lordship, 195, 196 marriage, 254, 259, 264, 275 polygamy, 268 sexual activity, 292 slavery, 175 unfree, 177, 180, 181, 184, 185 warfare, 72, 81, 84, 92, 103 wealth, 216, 217, 218, 245 biographies, 50 bishops, 127, 337 moral norms, 130, 154, 326 blinding, 109 bloodshed, see homicide Boniface, 32, 87, 258, 266, 281, 302 letters, 63 Bonnassie, Pierre, 186 booty, 87, 103–6, 219, 232 Borgolte, Michael, 148 Bosl, Karl, 124 Boso of Provence, 79, 140, 148 Boso, Italian count, see Ingiltrude Boswell, John, 281, 293, 295 Boyarin, David, 16 bravery, 87–9, 91–2 Bray, Alan, 9, 15, 297, 298 Bretons, 77, 80, 96–7, 102 bribery, 145, 153, 163, 165, 169, 233 Brown, Peter, 4, 133 Brown, Warren, 167, 172 Brundage, James, 10 Bullough, Donald, 21, 24, 76 Burchard of Worms, 203 burial, 110, 111, 209, 231 Butler, Judith, 16 Caesarius of Arles, 213, 235, 239, 245, 289, 325, 330 cannibalism, 35 canons, 61, 62

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Index Capitulare missorum generale 802, 154, 192, 210, 241, 294 capitularies, 9, 11, 29, 59–61, 62, 335 and alms-giving, 243 and beneices, 228 and counsellors, 144 and counts, 153, 155 and divorce, 269–71 and famine, 230 and incestuous marriage, 256–49 and justice, 160, 163, 164, 166 and lordship, 192–5 and oice, 151, 155 and pauperes, 224 and raptus, 250–1 and social hierarchy, 227 and usury, 230 capitularies, episcopal, 62 Carloman of Bavaria, 81 Carloman, son of Charles the Bald, 80 Carloman, son of Louis the Stammerer, 45, 138, 210, 224 Carmen de Timone comite, 56, 157, 167 castration, 276 Catalonia, 266, 276 celibacy, 279, 280, 297, 309, 321, 325, 326, 328 Chalon-sur-Saône, Council of (813), 33, 146, 240, 259, 287 Chanson de Roland, 95 charisma, see nobility and sanctity charitable deeds, 242 Charlemagne, 7, 8, 180, 323, 331, 333 and beneices, 228 biography, 50–1, 52 and counsellors, 144 and counts, 164 and food and drink, 236, 238 and households, 176 and justice, 160, 163, 165, 166, 167, 169 and kinship, 210 and land, 230, 234 and lay/clerical divide, 326 and lordship, 106, 191, 192, 193, 194 and marriage, 256, 257, 263, 270 and moral norms, 5, 13 and pauperes, 224, 225 and peace, 81 and raptus, 252 and sexual activity, 156, 282, 290, 291, 308 and sodomy, 294 and tenants, 226 and unfree, 162, 185, 186 and usury, 229 and vengeance, 210 and warfare, 54, 69, 73, 74, 76, 108 and wealth, 244

Charles the Bald, 40, 44, 77, 335 as audience, 36, 42, 44, 52, 66, 86 and counsellors, 144 and counts, 153 and cowardice, 89 and justice, 170 and land, 234 and lordship, 191, 194, 196 and marriage, 253 and nobility, 24 and oice, 150, 151, 152 and peace, 78, 93 and potentes, 123, 135 and sexual activity, 290 and social hierarchy, 171 and status symbols, 237 and unfree, 181 and usury, 229 and warfare, 79, 91, 101, 102, 105 Charles the Fat, 46, 324 as audience, 45, 52 and homicide, 102 and social hierarchy, 228 Charles the Simple, 137 chastity, 207, 281, 292 female, 205, 209, 283 male, 184, 268, 283–4, 297, 304, 308, 336, 338 Childebert II, 250, 257 children, see also daughters; families; fathers; sons deformed, 261, 286, 301 chivalry, 87, 106–11, 114–15, 338 Chrétien de Troyes, 108 Christianity, 6–7, 264, 302, 319 Cividale, Council of (796/97), 38, 260, 271, 286 Clark, Gillian, 327 Clement of Alexandria, 327 Clover, Carol, 16, 321 Collins, Roger, 39 Cologne, Council of (887), 265 colonialism, 332, 333 commerce, 231 Compiègne, Council of (757), 269, 305 concubines, 184, 249, 268, 273, 282–3, 287, 289, 291 Connell, Robert, 18 consecrated women, 250, 251, 254, 255, 304 consensus, 60–1, 153, 314, 315, 325, 332–4 Contreni, John, 240 Coon, Lynda, 322 Cooper, Kate, 7, 328 Corbet, Patrick, 260, 263, 265 Coslus, warrior, 97, 149 costume, 10, 126, 186, 219, 236 moral norms, 237–8 councils, church, 61–3, 335

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Index counsellors, 142–6 female, 140, 142 countesses, 148 counts, 146–58, see also oice moral norms, 153–8 origin, 146–7 courts and courtiers, 38–40, 71, 120, 132, 335 as audience, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58 criticism, 137–8, 139, 141 moral norms, 136–42 courts, church, 61 cowardice, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89–90, 96 crisis, see masculinity Datus, warrior, 70, 284 daughters, 117, 148, 206, 208–9, see also families; fathers; punishment De conversione Saxonum carmen, 54, 73 de Jong, Mayke, 5, 11, 12, 43, 52, 54, 61, 86, 262, 263, 294, 303, 311, 326, 333, 334 death in battle, 94–100 Decretum Vermeriense, 259, 270, 272, 305 Delaruelle, Etienne, 5, 72 Depreux, Philippe, 39 Deug-Su, I., 84 devastation, 103 Devisse, Jean, 79, 123, 142 Dhuoda, 2, 6 and alms-giving, 240, 241, 244 and charitable deeds, 242 and counsellors, 143, 145 and courts, 138, 139, 140, 141 and families, 206, 212, 309 and households, 177 and justice, 161 and land, 226 Liber manualis, 36, 41–2, 65, 312 and lordship, 195–6 and marriage, 268, 275, 284 and masculinity, 118 and mercy, 168 and nobility, 132 and oice, 149 and power, 176, 313 and pride, 125 and sanctity, 129 and sexual activity, 283 and social hierarchy, 122 and unfree, 184, 185 and warfare, 84 and wealth, 216–17, 218 Diem, Albrecht, 296 Dienstadel, see nobility: service discourses, 10, 11, see also gender; masculinity; sexuality

divorce, 9, 259, see also marriage; remarriage moral norms, 269–74 terminology, 268 Dodd, Sarah, 245 domestic violence, 35, 202–5, 254, 270, 304, see also punishment:of family members dominus, 188 domus, see familia double standards, 183, 282, 283, 289, 290, 291, 304 Douglas, Mary, 302–3 Douzy, Council of (874), 258, 265 dream texts, 45–6, 143, 308 and counts, 156 drink, see food and drink Dronke, Peter, 58 drunkenness, see food and drink Duby, Georges, 200, 262, 266, 274 Dutton, Paul, 46, 324 Ebbo of Rheims, 23, 51, 143, 149, 275, 334 Eberhard of Friuli, 2, 28–30, 63, 72, 129, 130, 234, 236, 335 Eberhardt, Otto, 179 Eccard of Mâcon, 48, 62 education, see moral education efeminacy, 16, 20, 89, 238, 239, 317, 319–22, 326, 338 Eggihard, 94, 130 Einhard, 32, 146 and beneices, 223, 228 and booty, 104 and families, 206 and households, 176 and justice, 172 and land, 227 letters, 63, 64, 128, 135 and nobility, 89, 149 and paganism, 73 and relics, 128 and unfree, 182, 183 and warfare, 86, 109 Vita Karoli, 48, 50–1, 52 Eleutherius, raptor, 255 elopement, see raptus Elsakkers, Marianne, 67 Elvira, Council of (306), 182 endogamy, see incestuous marriage Engelschalk, raptor, 251 enslavement, 103, 206, 272, see also slavery; unfree Epaon, Council of (517), 256, 259 Epernay, Council of (882), 45 Epitaphium Arsenii, see Paschasius Radbertus Erdmann, Carl, 73, 83 Eric of Friuli, 37–8, 84, 95, 219

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Index Erkanfrida, widow, 163, 243 Ermoldus Nigellus, 54, 55 and booty, 104 and costume, 237 and counsellors, 143 and courts, 138 and death in battle, 96–7 and food and drink, 239 and Frankish identity, 88 and insults, 108 and mercy, 111 and nobility, 87, 130, 149 and paganism, 75 and peace, 81, 112 and pride, 124 and social hierarchy, 122 and Waltharius, 57–8 and warfare, 70, 77, 85, 86, 101, 102, 110 Esmyol, Andrea, 291 exegesis, 31, 320, 336 Falcric, vassus, 65, 271, 274, 276, 282 familia, 175, 176 families, see also daughters; domestic violence; fathers; husbands; kinship; punishment; sons moral norms, 205–9 structure, see kinship famine, 103, 187, 224, 229, 230, 294 fathers, 205–9, 265, 277, 323, 324, 333, see also daughters; families; punishment; sons spiritual, 323 Faustus of Riez, 330 favour, 130, 135, 141, 165, 172, 196, 209, 211, 223, 313 feasting, see food and drink Felten, Franz, 26 feud, see vengeance feudalism, 189, 222, 229 idelity, 98–9, 192, 196, 198, 251, 311 Firey, Abigail, 333 Flandrin, Jean-Louis, 289 Flori, Jean, 83, 84, 87, 90 Folcuin of Rankweil, 233 Fontenoy, 79, 83, 95, 105, 110, 205 food and drink, 86, 167, 177, 229, 236, 238–9, 301 forgeries, 62, 258 formularies, 32, 63, 179, 183, 250, 269 fornicatio, 281 Foucault, Michel, 4, 298 Fouracre, Paul, 75, 156, 170, 171 Fox, Robin, 265 Frankfurt, Council of (794), 230 Frankish identity, see warfare

Freculf of Lisieux, 320 Fried, Johannes, 158, 173, 313, 315 Friedelehe, 249 friendship, 199, 211 Ganz, David, 52 Garrison, Mary, 64 Gaudemet, Jean, 248 gay people, 281, see also homosexuality gender, 15–17, 271, see also efeminacy; masculinity; women continuum, 321–2 deinition, 16, 17 discourses, 322, 331–2 third, 326 genealogies, 265 Gerald, count of Bourges, 152 Gerald, governor of Bavaria, 95, 157 Gerward, librarian of Louis the Pious, 48 gift-exchange, 165, 232–5, 329, see also bribery; favour Gillingham, John, 108, 110 Gisela, sister of Charlemagne, 49, 319 Gisela, wife of Eberhard of Friuli, 28–30 Gislebert, raptor, 251 Godden, Malcolm, 245 godparenthood, see kinship, spiritual Goetz, Hans-Werner, 116, 185, 226 Goldberg, Eric, 237, 311 Goode, Erich, 13 Goody, Jack, 262 Gosbert, poet, 53 Gradowicz-Pancer, Nira, 283 Graus, František, 197, 198 Gregorian reforms, 321, 337 Gregory II, pope, 267, 304 Gregory of Tours, 127, 321, 329 Gregory the Great, 121, 157, 181, 187, 226, 240, 258, 261, 301, 328 and incestuous marriage, 266 Grundherrschaft, 225 Gundrada, sister of Adalhard, 132, 143 Guy, count of the Breton march, 1 Hadrian I, pope, 76, 102 Hadrian II, pope, 255, 318 hagiography, 31–2 Haimo of Auxerre, 319, 320 Haito of Basel, 259, 263 Halitgar of Cambrai, 33, 83, 218 Halsall, Guy, 70, 210 Hammer, Carl, 22 Hannig, Jürgen, 165, 171 Hartmann, Wilfried, 38, 161 Hausherrschaft, 176 heads, severed, 110, 111

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Index Heene, Katrien, 3, 20, 31, 238, 308, 319 Heinzelmann, Martin, 127 Hemming, T. D., 95 Hen,Yitzhak, 73 Hengel, Martin, 215 Henry, dux of the eastern Franks, 97, 108 heresy, 264, 303, 320 Herlihy, David, 262 Herrschaft, 174 heterosexuality, 19, 281, 284 Hibernicus Exul, 54, 104 Hill, John, 99, 198 Hincmar of Rheims, 44–5, 49, 335 Ad Carolum III, 45 Ad episcopos, 45 and adultery, 291 and alms-giving, 240 and booty, 103, 105 and counsellors, 143, 144, 145 and courts, 138, 139, 141 De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendi, 36 De coercendo et exstirpando raptu viduarum, puellarum ac sanctimonialium, 45, 253–4 De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, 44, 249 De ordine palatii, 45 De regis persona et regio ministerio, 42, 67, 79 and divorce, 271, 272–3, 274, 275 and domestic violence, 203–4 and households, 176 and incestuous marriage, 267 and justice, 160, 166 and land, 224 and laymen, 288, 334 letters, 29, 64 and lordship, 195, 197 and marriage, 140, 262, 268, 273, 288 and mercy, 110, 168 Novi regis instructio, 45 and oice, 140, 150, 152, 155 and pauperes, 123, 220 and peace, 81 and pollution, 263 and power, 123 and raptus, 253–4 and social hierarchy, 212 and sodomy, 292, 293, 320 and warfare, 79, 82 and wealth, 218, 234 histories, 29, 47–8, 50, see also annals homicide, 102, see also domestic violence; punishment and kinship, 210, 276 and lordship, 194 and unfree, 182 in war, 81, 82–3

homosexuality, 9, 10, 19, 281, 292, 309, see also sexual activity, ‘unnatural’; sodomy honores, 157, see also oice honour, 99, 125, 132, 153, 182, 186, 207, 220, 242, 253, 311, see also chivalry; death in battle; insults; social hierarchy female, 283 hospitality, 241–2 households, 175–7, 247, 308, 310 and counts, 154 moral norms, 67, 184, 314 Hrabanus Maurus, 29, 63, 198, 335 De re militari, 83 and divorce, 272 and domestic violence, 202, 203 and families, 206, 211 and homicide, 83 and incest, 258, 260 and incestuous marriage, 258, 259, 261, 262, 275 letters, 29 and masculinity, 318, 322 penitentials, 33, 35 and sexual activity, 290, 292, 295, 299 and social hierarchy, 187 and unfree, 70, 180 Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, 337 Hucbald, 32, 67, 278, 308, 320 Hugh, count of Tours, 39, 86, 138, 140, 334 humility, see pride hunting, 166, 177, 219, 233 husbands, 201–5, see also domestic violence; families; marriage impotence, 272, 288, 306 incest, 35, 257–8, see also adulterous incest deinition, 255–6 incestuous marriage, 265, 301, 302, 303, 336 deinition, 255–6 enforcement of rules, 265–7 extension of rules, 256, 259, 261–5 moral norms, 258–9, 260–1 punishment, 257, 259 Ingelheim, Council of (829), 287 Ingiltrude, wife of count Boso, 39, 45, 203, 271, 309 Innes, Matthew, 47, 70, 120, 128, 147, 149, 189, 200, 221, 222, 224, 225, 243 insults, 86, 89–90, 107–8, 296, see also honour Isidore of Seville, 123, 157, 323 and justice, 5, 159, 164, 166, 169 and marriage, 259 and wealth, 216 and women, 304 iudices, see judges iustitia, 75, 76, 160

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Index Jaeger, Stephen, 107 Jerome, 242 and families, 208, 241 and marriage, 13, 271, 286 and masculinity, 328 and nobility, 126 and sexual activity, 301 and usury, 230 and wealth, 215 Jestice, Phyllis, 336 Jews, 148, 181, 191, 320 John VIII, pope, 267 Jonas of Orléans, 40, 80, 209 and adultery, 291 and alms-giving, 235, 240, 241 and bribery, 165 and charitable deeds, 242 and chastity, 283 and concubines, 184–5 and counsellors, 145 and counts, 157 De institutione laicali, 36, 40, 67, 300, 312 De institutione regia, 40, 42, 67 and divorce, 271, 272 and families, 205, 207–8 and food and drink, 239 and homicide, 82 and hospitality, 242 and households, 176 and incest, 255 and incestuous marriage, 264 and judges, 166, 167 and justice, 160 and kinship, 211 and laymen, 87, 288–9, 334 and marriage, 202, 307 and nobility, 132 and oice, 158 and perjury, 169 and polygamy, 268 and pride, 125, 126 and sexual activity, 283, 286, 288–9, 301–2, 305, 310 and social hierarchy, 121, 213 and sodomy, 295 and unfree, 182, 184–5, 186, 187 and wealth, 219–20, 231, 233, 245 Jones, Christopher, 297 Joye, Sylvie, 251 judges, 5, 159, 245 moral norms, 166–7 Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, 251, 253, 263, 264, 306 Judith, empress, 43, 117, 142, 156, 308 justice ideology, 159–61

and power, 161–3 and social hierarchy, 161–3, 171, 172 and warfare, 75, 76 Karayiannis, Anastassios, 245 Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, see Paderborn Epic Karras, Ruth Mazo, 281 Kershaw, Paul, 28, 78, 92, 93–4 kingship, 25, 42, 99, 154, 157, 161, 308, 315, 333, 336 kinship, 199–201, 263 degrees, 258–60 moral norms, 209–12 spiritual, 200, 211, 256, 258, 267, 276, 323 Kottje, Raymund, 82 Kratz, Dennis, 58, 104 Kroeschell, Karl, 175 Krüger, Karl, 50 land, 214, 221–5, 232 moral norms, 221, 223–5, 234–5 lay audiences, 14, 27, 31, 46, 47, 50, 52, 53–6, 62, 65, 312, see also Waltharius lay literacy, see lay audiences lay mirrors, 29, 36–7, 65, 66, 128, 311–12 and alms-giving, 244 and booty, 105 and costume, 237 and counsellors, 145 deinition, 1 and judges, 164 and land, 224 and lordship, 196 and oice, 157 and raptus, 250 and sexual activity, 264, 285, 291, 299 and social hierarchy, 121 and unfree, 185, 186, 188 and usury, 229 and warfare, 83 lay piety, 3–4, 30, 41, 128 lay/clerical divide, 7–8, 26, 130, 139, 145, 312, 315, 323, 325, see also Alcuin; Hincmar; Jonas of Orléans; marriage, models of and divorce, 271 and domestic violence, 203–5 and families, 211 and marriage, 274–8 and oice, 154, 157, 173 and sexual activity, 247, 287–9, 292, 304 and warfare, 69, 85–7, 111 and wealth, 217 lay/clerical relations, 8, 133, 263, 310, 314, 316, 322–3, 328, 329–30, 332, 334–6 Le Jan, Régine, 41, 100, 119, 130, 171, 210, 251, 262, 266, 277

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Index Lees, Clare, 94 legal system, 159 legislation, 59, see also capitularies; councils, church Leja, Meg, 323 leniency, 253, 260–1, 275, 282, 287, see also mercy Leo I, pope, 273 Leo III, pope, 54 Leo IV, pope, 88, 274 lepers, 270 letters, 63 Leyser, Conrad, 328, 329, 337 Leyser, Karl, 104 liturgy, 31, 69, 74, 81 Liutbert of Mainz, 49 Liutprand of Cremona, 337 lordship, 70–1, 87, 98–9, 100, 170, 315 deinition, 189 female, 191 ideology, 191 leaving, 193–4 and marriage, 270 moral norms, 190–9, 233 and power, 174 royal, 190 and social hierarchy, 192–5 terminology, 188 Lothar I, 95 as audience, 83 and beneices, 223 and counsellors, 143 and marriage, 256, 290 and oice, 152 and sexual activity, 283 and warfare, 101, 105 Lothar II, 44, 257, 264, 271, 273, 274, 291, 295, 296, 305 Louis II of Italy, 98, 101, 103, 193, 210, 228 Louis III of West Francia, 282 Louis the Child, 50 Louis the German, 56 as audience, 44, 46 and counsellors, 144 and lordship, 198 and masculinity, 325 and oice, 150, 152, 154 and status symbols, 237 and warfare, 78, 81, 102, 103, 290 Louis the Pious, 5, 13, 38, 52, 138, 314, 333, 334 and alms-giving, 243 as audience, 29, 43, 50, 55, 56, 67, 80, 206 biography, 51–2 and counsellors, 143 and counts, 164

and domestic violence, 202 and food and drink, 239 and justice, 163, 164 and kinship, 200, 210 and marriage, 257, 288 and masculinity, 318 and oice, 135, 151, 153, 173 and raptus, 251, 252 and sexual activity, 285 and social hierarchy, 237 and vengeance, 210 and warfare, 74, 77, 78, 79, 86, 101, 110, 290 Louis the Stammerer, 45, 150, 192, 197, 273 Louis the Younger, 93, 110 loyalty, see idelity Lull of Mainz, 32, 54, 63 Lupus of Ferrières, 29, 64, 244 and power, 135 and warfare, 85, 86 Lutterbach, Hubertus, 301, 302 luxuries, see status symbols Lynch, Joseph, 200 Maccabees, 72, 84, 99 MacLean, Simon, 49, 50, 52, 324 Mainz, Council of (813), 231 Mainz, Council of (847), 182, 255 Mainz, Council of (852), 283 Mainz, Council of (861x863), 260, 276, 287 Mainz, Council of (888), 267, 276 manumission, 185 manuscripts lay ownership, 28 Paris BnF lat. 11379, 63 Paris BnF lat. 2996, 38 Paris BnF lat. nouv. acq. 1632, 66, 80 marital debt, 285, 304, 305 marriage, 44, 299, 310, see also husbands Cologne Dombibliothek, MS 184, 40n100 deinition, 248 enforcement of rules, 276–7 ‘Germanic’, 248 headship, 201, 202 indissoluble, 204, 205, 269, 270 models of, 266, 274, 276, 277 moral norms, 247, 249, 274–8, 316 non-consummation, 270, 272, 273 and social hierarchy, 307 spiritual, 305 Troyes Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1742, 66n284 underage, 258 Martin, St, 72 masculinity, 4–5, 14–21, 316, 336, see also efeminacy; gender; virilitas

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Index Carolingian, 317–27, 338 and Christianity, 319 clerical, 321, 325–6, 327–9 and costume, 238 crisis of, 19–21, 323–6, 334 deinition, 14–15 discourses, 317–21, 332–4, 336–8 and food and drink, 238 hegemonic, 18, 328 lay, 316, 317, 323–5, 327–9 and marriage, 277 multiple masculinities, 17, 327–9, 337 Norse, 15, 321, 329 and oice, 148, 332 and paganism, 88, 329 and power, 117, 327, 328, 333 Roman, 15, 327–8 and sexual activity, 296, 304–6, 327, 337 and social hierarchy, 330 and warfare, 69, 88–9, 102, 317, 328, 337 and women, 317, 319, 329 masturbation, 34 Matfrid of Orléans, 38–40, 43, 138, 140, 141, 145, 152, 165, 334 Maximus of Turin, 103 McCormick, Michael, 99 McGuckin, John, 215 McKitterick, Rosamond, 27, 31, 47, 50, 58, 59, 161 McNamara, Jo Ann, 321 meat, 236 Meaux-Paris, Council of (845/46), 117, 149, 176, 181, 251, 252, 253, 256, 291 medical texts, 18, 322 menstruation, 285, 286, 301 mercy, 108–11, 167–8, 253, see also leniency Merovingian period and death in battle, 99 and divorce, 269, 273, 277 and incestuous marriage, 264, 266 and justice, 161, 163, 165 and land, 222 and marriage, 183, 205 and masculinity, 329 and nobility, 127, 214 and oice, 146 and polygamy, 267 and raptus, 250 and women, 20 Metz, Council of (893), 276 ministerium, 153 mirrors for princes, see kingship Mollat, Michel, 245 monks, 30, 50, 57, 90, 129, 182, 211, 242, 294, 296–7, 304, 322, 324, 328, 336

moral education, 21, 67, 138, 213 moral norms, 4–8, 311 continuity, 12, 45, 46, 65, 66, 67, 111, 153, 170, 274–5, 298, 312, 337 enforcement, 8–10, 276–7 omissions, 12, 187, 235, 309, 313 validity, 10–12, 265, 316 moral panics, 13, 40, 224, 298 morality and politics, 5–6, 65, 332–4 and pollution, 303 Murman, Breton king, 75, 96–7, 110, 124, 139 Murray, Alexander, 133 music, 38 Muslims, see Saracens mutilation, 160, 167, 182, see also castration Nantes, ‘Council’ of, 161 Nees, Lawrence, 55 Nelson, Janet, 27, 41, 49, 52, 58, 100, 117, 129, 137, 148, 217, 323–4 Newhauser, Richard, 231 Nicholas I, pope, 253, 267, 271, 276 Nithard, 48, 52, 65, 66 and courts, 140 and death in battle, 95, 99 and lordship, 197 and masculinity, 118, 323, 325 and mercy, 110 and nobility, 89, 99, 114, 131, 133 and peace, 81 and sanctity, 129 and unfree, 186 and warfare, 78, 114 nobilitas, 22, 89, 126–7, 130–3 nobility, 4–5, 21–5, 126–34, 330, see also social hierarchy and counsellors, 140, 143 deinition, 21–2, 24–5 and incestuous marriage, 265–7 and land, 221 and marriage, 277, 307 moral norms, 21, 316 and oice, 149 origins, 121 and pride, 125 and sanctity, 127–9 service, 22 and sexual activity, 308 and warfare, 70–1, 79, 86–9, 99, 112, 113–15, 310 Noble, Thomas, 21, 27, 64, 66, 67, 311, 316 non-combatants, 86, 90–1, 114 Northild, noblewoman, 288, 295

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Index Notker, 8, 52, 326, 335 and costume, 237 and courts, 138, 139 and food and drink, 236 and insults, 107 and land, 234 and nobility, 87 nuns, see consecrated women oaths, 73, 100, 191, 192, 193, 199, 331, see also perjury oblation, 297, 329, 331 Odegaard, Charles, 192 Odo of Cluny, 28, 90, 292, 297, 308, 324, 336–7 oice, 135, see also counts appointment, 140, 148–51 dismissal, 151–2 ideology, 147, 157 inherited, 150–1 Olsen, Glenn, 312 oral culture, 67, 98, 297, see also music Orderic Vitalis, 298 Orléans, Council of (511), 250 Orléans, Council of (541), 250 paciism, 71–2, 83, 87 Paderborn Epic, 54 paganism, 6–7, 181, 302, see also masculinity; warfare against pagans Paris, Council of (829), 40, 131, 154, 155, 224, 229, 230, 271, 287, 293, 294 Paschasius Radbertus, 32, 52, 242 and counsellors, 142, 143, 145 and courts, 141 and families, 212 and justice, 163 and masculinity, 320 and sexual activity, 308 and social hierarchy, 122 patriarchy, 175, 308, 310, 331–2, see also families; fathers; households Patzold, Stefan, 131 Paul the Deacon, 85 Paul, St, 121, 161, 179, 186, 202, 207, 279, 284, 285, 289, 291, 293, 302 Paulinus of Aquileia, 38 and alms-giving, 240 and booty, 105 and bribery, 165 and costume, 238 and domestic violence, 203 and families, 205, 212 and food and drink, 238 and friendship, 211 and households, 176–7 Liber exhortationis, 36, 38, 299, 311

and masculinity, 320 and nobility, 132 and pauperes, 123 planctus for Eric, 37, 84 poetry, 54 and social hierarchy, 106, 121–2, 213 and spiritual warfare, 90 and warfare, 84–5 and wealth, 219, 231 pauperes, 121, 122, 123, 124, 177, 187, 215, 219–20, 235, 241, 242, 243, 245, 315, see also social hierarchy and counts, 153, 155 deinition, 116, 215 and justice, 163, 166 and land, 223–5 and usury, 230 Pavia, Council of (845x850), 122 Pavia, Council of (850), 209, 243, 252, 283, 307 Payer, Pierre, 33, 35, 298, 299 peace, 78, 80–2, 92–4, 102, 112 Peace of God movement, 91 penitentials, 30, 33–5, 206, 297, 301 and incest, 257 and marriage, 269 and moral norms, 34–5 and sexual activity, 184, 280, 282, 285, 287, 289, 290, 298–301 and sodomy, 293, 295, 296 and warfare, 82–3 performativity, 16, 20, 316 perjury, 169 Peter Damian, 292, 297 philosophy, 6 Pippin I of Aquitaine as audience, 40, 55 Pippin II of Aquitaine, 79 Pippin III, king of the Franks and homicide, 102 and marriage, 183, 194, 269 and warfare, 75, 76 Pippin, king of Italy, 164 Pîtres-Soissons, Council of (862), 295 plunder, see booty poetry, 29, 53–8 and courts, 138 and lordship, 197 and warfare, 98 pollution, 263–4, 286, 294, 299, 300–3 polygamy, 267–8 Ponthion, Council of (876), 45 poor, see pauperes Pössel, Christina, 11, 24, 60 potentes, 116, 123, 124, 223, see also social hierarchy power, see also potentes

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Index female, 116–17 local, 119 moral norms, 120–4, 133, 313–15 private, 119–20 public, 117, 119–20, 154, 173 sources, 118–20 vocabulary, 314 pregnancy, 202, 285, 286, 287, 288 pride, 124–6 Prinz, Friedrich, 69, 128 prostitutes, 139, 184, 234, 282, 283 Prudentius of Troyes, 49, 91, 101, 105, 191 Pseudo-Cyprian, 123, 143, 160, 195, 240 punishment, 160, 167–8, 171 and social hierarchy, 182 capital, 79, 109, 206, 257 of family members, 182, 206, 207–8, see also domestic violence Quierzy, Council of (858), 44, 154, 176, 205 Radulf of Bourges, 287 rape, 249, 254, 293 raptus, 273, 277, 314 deinition, 249, 250 moral norms, 250–5 theology, 253–4 Rather of Verona, 14, 133, 174, 297, 313 Réal, Isabelle, 277 rebels, 109 Regino of Prüm, 62, 156, 271, 336 Chronicon, 50 and courts, 140 and death in battle, 97–8 and homicide, 102 and insults, 108 and masculinity, 88 and nobility, 131 and oice, 150, 152, 154 and peace, 81 and power, 118 and warfare, 79, 88, 93, 101, 103 Reichsaristokratie, 23, 201 Reisbach, Freising and Salzburg, Councils of (800), 241 relics, 128, 129 remarriage, 259, 260–1, 268, 291, 304, 305–6, see also divorce moral norms, 269–74 retinues, see lordship Reuter, Timothy, 24, 49, 103, 236 Reynolds, Susan, 171, 172, 189, 191 Rheims, Council of (813), 235, 241 Rio, Alice, 179, 182 Ripwin, warrior, 70

Robert the Strong, 97, 99, 101, 151 Robinson, Sally, 20 Rome, Council of (721), 259 Rome, Council of (826), 272 Roncesvalles, 94, 102 Rösener, Werner, 223 Ruadbern, courtier, 56, 197, 198 Rubin, Gayle, 16 Russell, Frederick, 112 saints, see nobility and sanctity Salzman, Michelle, 7, 126 sanctity, see nobility and sanctity Saracens, 74–5, 80, 181, 297, 303 Saxon capitulary, 73, 151, 164, 166, 194, 251, 307 Saxons, 73, 77, 79, 198, 333 scandals, 156, 261, 267, 294, 297, 303–4 Scharf, Thomas, 95, 103 Schmid, Karl, 199 Schröder, Edward, 57 Schulze, Hans, 25, 147, 148 Scott, Joan, 17 Sedlmeier, Franz, 3, 311 Sedulius Scottus, 6, 29, 42 and counsellors, 143, 144, 145 and insults, 107 Liber de rectoribus christianis, 92–3 and nobility, 130 and peace, 81, 92–3 poetry, 56 self-sanctiication, see nobility and sanctity Seligenstadt, 128 senior, 188 separation, 268, see also divorce, remarriage serfdom, 178 sermons, 32, 43, 101, 123, 165, 205, 283, 287 sex, biological, 16, 18, 332 sexual activity, 139 clerical, 326 and counts, 156 female, 209, 280, 305–6 male, 283–4, 304–6, 309–10 marital, 285–9, 294, 295, 301–2 moral norms, 279, 316 permitted times, 285–7, 288, 302 premarital, 261, 282–4 and social hierarchy, 306–8 terminology, 280–2 ‘unnatural’, 292–8, 299, 301, 302–3, see also bestiality, sodomy sexual identity, see sexuality sexuality, 279, 281, see also double standards; heterosexuality; homosexuality discourses, 298–300, 307 female, 304, 306 male, 304, 305–6, 307, 309–10

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Index Siems, Harald, 9, 221, 230, 237 Sippe, 199–200 slavery, 178–80, see also enslavement; unfree Smaragdus, 29, 42 and unfree, 179 Smith, Julia, 6, 14, 20, 77, 279, 322 social hierarchy, 120–3, 133, 187, 219, 331, see also justice; nobility; pauperes; potentes; status symbols and beneices, 228 and booty, 106 and costume, 237 and cowardice, 86 and lordship, 192–5 and marriage, 307 and masculinity, 330 moral norms, 4, 213, 227, 314, 316 and sexual activity, 306–8 sodomy, 281, 292–3, 294, 295, 297–8, 302, 307, 320, see also sexual activity, ‘unnatural’ as political weapon, 296, 297, 337 softness, 322 sons, 206–8, see also families; fathers; punishment spiritual kinship, see kinship, spiritual spiritual warfare, 84, 90 status symbols, 186, 214, 235, 236–9 Staubach, Nicholas, 42 Stellinga, 79, 122, 307 Stephen, count of the Auvergne, 44, 63, 156, 258, 263, 267, 272, 273, 282, 288, 291 sterility, 273 Strickland, Matthew, 114 Süntel Mountains, 98, 151 sumptuary legislation, 10, 237 Tassilo, 76, 102, 109, 142, 168, 191 Tellenbach, Gerd, 23, 199 tenants, 222, 225–7 moral norms, 226–7 Thegan, 51, 86, 143 and families, 206 and nobility, 131 and unfree, 185 Theodulf of Orléans, 34, 39 and avarice, 218 and bribery, 165 and judges, 166–7, 244 and justice, 160 and mercy, 168 Paraenesis, 5, 55, 166 and perjury, 169 and pride, 125–6 and sexual activity, 287, 299 and wealth, 220

Theutberga, see Lothar II three orders, 90 Tobias days, 286 Toledo, 1st Council of (400), 283, 291 Toledo, 2nd Council of (527), 259 Toubert, Pierre, 13, 36, 37, 248, 259, 274, 304 Tours, Council of (813), 162, 169, 239 treasure, see status symbols Tremp, Ernst, 51, 74 Treue, 192, 213 Tribur, Council of (895), 185, 204, 260, 272, 273, 291, 306 Tusey, Council of (860), 44, 240 unfree, 222, see also enslavement; slavery ideology, 185–7 and justice, 162 marriage, 183–4, 270, 307 moral norms, 180–8 roles, 177 sale of, 180–1 sexual control, 183–5 terminology, 177, 178 and violence, 182–3 and warfare, 70 usury, 9, 221, 229–30, 231 uxoricide, see domestic violence Valence, Council of (855), 178 vengeance, 73, 88, 108, 210–11 vernacular texts, 2, 27, 38, 53, 67, 190 Vikings, 80, 91, 97, 99–100, 102, 181 virginity, 283, 284, 327, 331 virilitas, 4, 88–9, 317–20, see also masculinity Visio Caroli Magni, 46 Visio cuiusdam pauperculae mulieris, 46 Visio Karoli, 46 Vita Adalhardi, see Paschasius Radbertus Vita Ganguli, 31, 278, 335, 337 and domestic violence, 202, 205 and masculinity, 309, 317, 318, 334 Vita Geraldi, see Odo of Cluny Vollrath, Hanna, 226 Vurfand, Breton dux, 71, 97, 131 Wala, 43, 52, 122, 140, 141, 143, 168, 242 Walahfrid Strabo, 51, 56, 128 and counts, 156, 157 and courts, 139 and death in battle, 95 and lordship, 197 and nobility, 149 and sodomy, 294 Visio Wettini, 56

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Index Waltharius, 25, 124, 197, 211, 218, 233 audience, 57–8 and booty, 104 and bravery, 91–2 and courts, 140 and cowardice, 86, 89 dating, 57 and death in battle, 96 and food and drink, 239 and insults, 107 and mercy, 111 and nobility, 130 and sexual activity, 284 and status symbols, 236 and warfare, 102 war civil, 27, 78–80, 83, 109 holy, 73–4, 112 just, 71, 72, 79, 112 private, 73, 114 warfare, 75–7, see also armies; Biblical models; booty; devastation; homicide; warriors against Christians, see Aquitanians; Basques; Bavarians; Bretons and Frankish identity, 69, 79, 88 indiscipline, 91, 93, 97, 100, 108, 124, 158 moral norms, 312 against pagans, 73–5, 77, 79, 83, see also Avars, Saracens,Vikings, Wiltzites permitted times, 101–2 tactics, 100–3, 113 warriors, 82, 83, 86, 90, see also lordship wealth, 214 moral norms, 215, 221, 229–32, 245–6, 314, 316 weapons, 102, 236 Weber, Ines, 252

Weber, Max, 10, 11 Wemple, Suzanne, 9, 20, 252 Werner, Karl Ferdinand, 22, 23, 58, 146 wheel of fortune, 123 White, Stephen, 198 Wickham, Chris, 21, 119, 225 widowers, 268, 283 widows, 153, 163, 166, 268 William of Septimania, 40–1 William of Toulouse, 86, 111, 129 William the Pious, 110 William, count of Blois, 53 Willibald, 32, 87 wills, 28, 30, 48, 63, 185, 214, 216, 236, 243–4 Wiltzites, 74 wives, see husbands; marriage women, 331–2, see also chastity; counsellors; gender; honour; lordship; power; sexual activity; sexuality and households, 176 and justice, 161, 163 and land, 222 and moral norms, 14 and oice, 148 and power, 332 and spiritual kinship, 261 and warfare, 69, 87, 89, 102 Wood, Ian, 264 Wormald, Patrick, 4, 59 Worms, Council of (868), 83, 259, 287, 290, 305 Wulfad of Bourges, 121, 170, 209 Zachary, pope, 75, 86 Zado, Saracen leader, 75, 109, 111, 124 Ziolkowski, Jan, 57 Zotz, Thomas, 152 Zwentibold, 140, 152

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