Carolingian Portraits: A Study in the Ninth Century

319 Pages·1988·7.757 MB·English

by  Eleanor Shipley Duckett

CAROLINGIAN PORTRAITS

carolingien! portraits
A STUDY IN THE NINTH CENTURY
by Eleanor Shipley Duckett
ANN ARBOR PAPERBACKS
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
First edition as an Ann Arbor Paperback 1969
Copyright © by The University of Michigan 1962
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press and simultaneously
in Don Mills, Canada, by Longmans Canada Limited
Manufactured in the United States of America
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
CORNELIA AND THOMAS CORWIN MENDENHALL
OF SMITH COLLEGE
for their interest in medieval studies
and in those who work therein
FOREWORD
The ninth century on the Continent of Europe was an age of
darkness: of constant strife between the sons and grandsons of
Charles the Great; of unending descents for raid and plunder by
pirates upon the coasts of France and Italy, of Germany, Belgium,
and the Netherlands; of long and often tedious quarrels among
theologians and philosophers.
Its records lie in Latin annals, letters, treatises, very largely
as yet untranslated into English. Scholars of distinction—of Eng­
land, America, Germany, Holland, France, and Belgium, espe­
cially of France and Belgium—have gathered from these their
clear and deeply probing narratives and interpretations of the
history of Church and state in this time; others have told us of
the lives and writings of individual men.
Yet, compared with other centuries, the ninth of our era
seems to lack some simple story of its leaders. The student who
is not a specialist, the general reader interested in medieval
European history, is familiar with Charlemagne, with Einhard,
perhaps with Amalar of Metz. But he does not know much, I
venture to think, about Lupus of Ferrières, or Hincmar of Reims,
and possibly not a great deal concerning even Louis the Pious
or Pope Nicholas the Great.
The century, nevertheless, is one of importance and interest.
It saw not only the rise, but the gradual decline and the fall of the
Empire founded by Charlemagne. It saw, in the years between
the reign of this Emperor and that of his grandson, Charles the
Bald, a significant change in the relation between thrones and
sees, the powers secular and ecclesiastical. It saw a new concept
of Papal authority in the mind of Nicholas the Great; a new
domination in the purpose of the great Metropolitans of the
Church; a struggle of their bishops against this will to dominate.
vi FOREWORD
It saw the forging of the False Decretals and the writing of a
famous medieval biography. It saw a lasting contribution to the
progress of the Roman liturgy. It held within itself a passion for
scholarship which was not sterile, but constructive. Finally, it
held men and women of that humanity which has happily, and
often unhappily, been common to all ages of the world.
It has therefore seemed to me worth while to try to bring
back into life here seven of these men, placed for better under­
standing against the background of their own turbulent time.
My apology for including the more familiar figure of Charlemagne
among them must be that my story of an Empire had to have a
beginning before it could draw toward its end.
For the errors in my story I alone am responsible. I would,
however, thank especially Harold Pink, of the Cambridge Uni­
versity Library, whom I consulted in regard to manuscripts con­
nected with Lupus of Ferrières; and Philip Grierson, reader in
medieval numismatics, University of Cambridge, professor of
numismatics. University of Brussels, for his extraordinary gen­
erosity in allowing me to borrow, carry across the Atlantic, and
keep as long as I wished seven rare volumes from his own private
collection.
E. S. D.
July 1962
Northampton, Massachusetts
CONTENTS
I. The Rise of the Carolingian Empire;
Charles the Great. l
IL Louis the Pious, King and Emperor 20
m. Einhard of Seligenstadt
58
IV. Amalar of Metz 92
V. Walafrid Strabo of Reichenau 121
VL Lupus of Ferrières l6l
vn. Hincmar of Reims 202
vm. The Last Years of the Carolingian Empire 265
The Carolingian Line 285
The Popes of Rome 286
Table of Dates 287
List of Sources, primary and secondaiy 296
Index 307

Chapter I
THE RISE OF THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE
CHARLES THE GREAT
l
On January 28, 814, at nine o’clock in the morning, Charles the
Great, "Most Serene Majesty, crowned by God, Emperor great
and pacific, governing the Roman Empire and by God’s mercy
king of the Franks and of the Lombards,” died of pleurisy in his
Palace at Aachen in West Germany, between the Meuse and
the Rhine. He was seventy-one years old. For forty-six of these
years he had been king of the Franks; thirteen had now gone
by since Pope Leo III had crowned him Emperor in St. Peter’s,
Rome, since he had heard the Litany of Praises chanted to God
in his honor by the multitude assembled for the High Mass of
Christmas Day. In his last weeks, as he lay failing in body but
ever active in mind, reading Latin texts of the Bible with an
eye still alert for errors, he must sometimes have turned his
thoughts back over what he had done in his world.
He had entered into the rule of a great kingdom, won partly
by inheritance in 768 from his father, King Pippin the Short,
partly by a determined seizure, which took no account of other
heirs, of his brother’s portion when that brother, Carloman, ap­
pointed with him joint-king by their father, had ended their
uneasy partnership by his death in 771. Then Charles had held
under his power lands extending from Frisia in the northeast
to Provence and the Gothic Septimania on the border of Spain
in the south. He was king over Neustria, with its cities of Paris,
of Soissons, and of Rouen; over Austrasia, country of the Rhine
and the Moselle, with its cities of Cologne and Mainz and Metz;
over the forests and mountains of Thuringia; over Alemannia,
country of the Rhine and the Danube; over Aquitaine and
Burgundy.
But he had looked beyond even these wide bounds. There
had been Italy. In 773 he had answered the appeal of Pope
2 CAROLINGIAN PORTRAITS
Hadrian I and had marched to defend the Papal See of Rome
from Lombard menace. He had laid siege to Pavia, capital city
of the Lombard king, Desiderius; he had captured it in 774
and had sent Desiderius and his queen as prisoners of war to
Frankland. Henceforward, he himself had been king of the Lom­
bards in northern Italy and proudly bore the title of Patrician
of the Romans. Two years later he had again marched into Italy,
to put down Lombard rebellion, and had returned only when
its leader, the Lombard Duke of Friuli, was dead and when the
rebel cities, Friuli and Treviso, were in his own hands. In 781
he had seen his son, Pippin, then four years old, anointed at
Rome as king of Italy by the same Pope Hadrian; as ruler supreme
he had entrusted this kingdom’s increasing territory to the care
of loyal Frankish governors. For nearly thirty years Pippin and
his counselors had held their Court in the north and central
lands of Italy, always under the dominant control of Charles.
After Pippins early death at the age of thirty-three, Charles had
given his crown to Pippin’s son, young Bernard, and once more
had fortified its rule by the presence of two able advisers of his
own appointing. Nor had Italy in the south lain untouched by
him. In 786 he had marched with an army to win control over
the Duchy of Benevento; he had received the homage of its
Duke and had held in his keeping the Duke’s younger son as a
guarantee of good faith.
Charles, then, had conquered in Italy. Had not the Papal
See needed his hand? At the same time he had already put this
hand to another war of conquest, which he also held to be good
and timely as a Christian crusade. North of Austrasia and Thu­
ringia lived countless savage Saxon tribesmen, by old tradition
heathen worshippers of strange gods. Was not he a Christian
ruler, whose divine vocation it was to further the spreading of
the Christian faith? It was for him, he had felt convinced, to con­
quer these heathen for the glory of Christ and the saving of
their benighted souls, and also to conquer them for the protection
and the extending of his Frankish kingdom. Saxon raiders were
always eager and ready to descend for plunder on Frankish fields;
Saxon people, too, as a great and mighty force were standing
implacable in the path of Frankish progress and growth.