Anyone who is a Christian and planning on voting Democrat this fall, consider the following:
The Democratic party platform recognizes Abortion and women's "right" to decide whether unborn children will live or die (http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform#protecting-rights). This is simply legal murder, no different than the hideous crimes in the headlines recently, and cannot be reconciled with Christians' faith.
As Christians, we believe in a God Who reserves the right to decide life and death (1 Sam 2:6, Ps 31:15) and abhors murder (Gen 9:6, Ex 20:13, Deut 5:17, Matt 5:21). The value of human life is explicitly and repeatedly defined in the Bible and children are frequently mentioned as deserving of protection. David praised God for His foreknowledge of each child born (Ps 139:13), St Paul corroborated it (Eph 1:4) and God confirmed it (Jer 1:5). Children are regarded as a blessing to their parents (Ps 127:3-5) and Christ Himself made clear His love of children, through both words (Matt 18:6, 19:14) and deeds (John 3:16). Thus, the practice of abortion is utterly sinful.
The beginning of life is often brought up when debating abortion, yet regardless of whether that is at conception or first breath, all but a few babies will grow into living infants, then children, then adults. Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, millions of children have been killed - most of these would otherwise be alive today, many raising families of their own.
As Christians, we are commanded to visit widows and orphans and to care for the "least of these." How can we claim to protect the innocent and the helpless if we do not stand up for the most helpless among us? We each have a responsibility to those less fortunate, and that means supporting ministries, giving sacrificially, and - yes - even voting for those with the authority to decide the fate of children at home and around the world.
This issue need not divide us. We can disagree over issues of Socialism, healthcare, prison reform, or gun control. But there is no middle ground regarding abortion: there is Life, and there is Death. I recognize that there are many unwanted pregnancies, and there are many children conceived under brutal and unbearable circumstances. Yet these are still helpless babies that need to be protected, not killed out of vanity, anger, fear, or despair. God made clear that no one is to sacrifice their children to idols (Lev 18:21) and while we no longer practice human sacrifice, every aborted child is nonetheless a victim of sinful hubris.
In one sense at least, the Democrats are right: we do have a choice. I pray that when my Christian friends go to the polls in November they will commit to God's love of LIFE.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
McKitterick’s Charlemagne
Rosamond McKitterick. Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
When a historian is tasked with reading an original document, it is to be expected that he or she will utilize every faculty of the mind to analyze the clues hidden between the lines. This and more can be said of Rosamond McKitterick. In her 2011 work, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity, this author delves into the world of the man who has been “the object of commentary and study for the past 1,200 years.” By scrutinizing the written evidence most contemporary to her subject, McKitterick delivers a stunning in-depth look into what the sources can say about Charlemagne and his times.
Seeking to “chart the formation of Frankish political identity during the reign of Charlemagne” McKitterick’s work offers a protagonist not so much in the titular king, as his rule. McKitterick’s stated purpose is to differentiate between “what we can know about Charlemagne and what we think we know,” having “tried to free Charlemagne’s reign from the clutter of arguments, assumptions and hypotheses that have somehow become facts.” As such, the range of time covered in Charlemagne is rather limited, its evidence drawn from materials produced between the mid-700s and Charlemagne’s death in the early 800s. Covering such topics as rule of law, religion in government, and court structure, Charlemagne hovers between biography and political theory. Unfortunately, the tale regularly devolves into lists of names and manuscripts rather than delivering a visual image of Charlemagne’s life and times. Indeed, McKitterick herself declares that Charlemagne’s identity ultimately remains a mystery.
Although a “European Identity” is promised in the book’s subtitle, there does not appear to be much by way of a holistic view. McKitterick seems more to provide a look at the personal world of Charlemagne – his contacts, his policies, his books – than at the man himself or Carolingian society. Seeking to present herself as staunchly objective, McKitterick’s brief accounts of social interaction are hastily put aside in favor of catalogues of names, dueling Latin translations, and number crunching, the author preferring to consider such social fluff as feasts and hunts as unreliable guess-work. Rather, a great deal of space is spent presenting McKitterick’s painstaking research into Carolingian texts, sometimes simply listing out the possible members of the royal household that are named in original texts – for instance, she is pleased to discover that a royal chaplain called the apocrisiarius “undoubtedly existed.” However, the lengths to which McKitterick is willing to go for answers are quite extraordinary, as she happily produces evidence drawn from single lines within texts, such as the disagreement between two sources over whether Pippin III was consecrated or anointed, the words lending different tones to his ascension to kingship. However, McKitterick occasionally allows her objectivity to slip, such as describing the misdeeds committed by Franks at war – often associated with the church – while blandly taking the side of Charlemagne’s enemies, even placing their own supposed evils in quotes rather than taking them at face value. Yet whatever McKitterick’s view, it is undoubtedly that of an aristocrat. The choice of sources listed in Charlemagne are predominantly print-based, and therefore represent the worldviews of those men educated enough to write and of others wealthy enough to hire such individuals. Thus the book remains a view of Charlemagne’s Frankia from the top drawer.
Considering that writing was among Charlemagne’s “most lasting legacies,” it only stands to reason that McKitterick should utilize such sources almost exclusively. And this is fitting, as her strong point as a historian is clearly the careful and insightful critiquing of Medieval manuscripts. The texts chosen (many accompanied by sophisticated classifications like “BnF lat. 4629” ) are justified as being supposedly those “first produced between [AD] 747/8 and 814, not because they may or may not be more truthful than accounts produced after Charlemagne’s death … but because they have at least the merit of being contemporary.” There are numerous types of works considered: official histories by famed worthies such as Einhard; court annals; charters; letters; capitularies; books, many with a religious bent; and even relic labels, these latter used to determine roughly when the royal convent of Chelles expanded its collection. Apparently many of these works were exhaustively researched by McKitterick and others, but a few earned her especial favor or ire. As stated above, McKitterick takes issue with those histories written after Charlemagne’s life, especially the biographer Einhard, as his history begins “a process of distortion simply by writing in hindsight, after the king’s death.” Indeed, in some ways, says McKitterick, Einhard may be credited with creating Charlemagne as future readers would know him. Letters are naturally found to be more fun by this exacting historian (she points out those that the Carolingians chose to renew and even rewrite ) but more, perhaps, is made of other contemporary documents, the legal charters and capitularies.
The former leads to one of McKitterick’s lengthy examinations and reveals her strengths as an historian of manuscripts. It has been argued, says she, that “where the charter was drawn up, there was the king and his court. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that.” That is, in attempting to recreate Charlemagne’s itinerant court, historians sought out his charters and assumed that, “by order of the king,” so to speak, his presence may be logically inferred. Here McKitterick leaps into the fray, arguing instead for a presence of notaries and scribes rather than an extremely mobile monarch. This is perhaps the shining example of how written text can be used to determine the facts of the matter, as McKitterick tracks down the sundry scribes earning a royal paycheck, and, along with one of her lists of names, charts out their supposed locations within the empire and painting a picture of Carolingian state organization.
Capitularies are another area of demonstrated expertise. A means of governance and administration – through communicating the wishes of an authority figure and taking many forms, from the letters of St. Paul to “checklists of things to be done or matters to be investigated” – they were issued as imperial orders and were often accompanied by oral instructions; cases exist where recipient nobles were enjoined to reread the capitularies in their possession and to recall the said oral instructions. Capitularies performed numerous practical functions, and also serve to inform the studious reader about contemporary conditions within the empire. They granted authority to the king’s representatives, demonstrated in their regional and “early programmatic” forms the “imposition of Frankish rule in the newly conquered areas” and became a means of inspiration for the later codifying of the duties of officials. They also reflect many religious themes and some capitularies dealt directly with Church concerns, often overlapping with the secular world with regards to crime and punishment.
Religion is naturally a recurring theme in Charlemagne, at least in political terms; as McKitterick declares, “Christian Latin culture and the Christian religion were the means of moulding [sic] Charlemagne’s empire in to a coherent polity.” In keeping with her commitment to objectivity, McKitterick seems to avoid any speculation into the nature of religious belief in Frankia, focusing instead upon what writings are available for dissection to determine the religious dialogues exchanged in the course of Charlemagne’s life. McKitterick refrains from making any concrete judgments on the matter and instead seems to link politics to piety throughout her book, especially where relations with the pope are concerned. Of central importance is the notion of correctio or “correct thinking and correct language” – here “the acquisition of knowledge and the exercise of power were yoked together” in Charlemagne’s Frankia. McKitterick’s sources provide numerous examples of this merger of royal and ecclesiastical interests. Support of the church became a royal duty, as emphasized in the omnipresent charters – which also provided an opportunity to look into the monarch’s mind and see how he understood his role – and the capitularies make plenty of appearances as they call for the abandonment of paganism and the imposition of right practice in newly conquered territories, demands certainly amiable to both church and state. These attitudes are also reflected in the histories of the times, the Poeta Saxo placing emphasis on “the conversion of the Saxons rather than their conquest” in an attempt to make Charlemagne an apostle among kings. In this worldview, service to the king came to be equated with service to God.
It is safe to argue that McKitterick, whatever one makes of her conclusions, presents an excellent example of intuitive research. By combining non-committal interest with an eagle’s eye for telling detail, she succeeds in reminding the reader just how much can be discovered and how much is taken for granted. Written with the initiated experts in mind, Charlemagne is perfectly at home on the historian’s bookshelf.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Costambeys’ Carolingia
Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, Simon MacLean. The Carolingian World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Every so often historians need to be reminded to “go back to the basics” and revisit established histories in an effort to discover new means of telling an old story. Answering the call for the “Dark Ages” of Carolingian history are Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, whose recent book, The Carolingian World, is intended to study “the contemporary sources [and to see what they] can tell us about the Carolingian period on its own terms.” Costambeys and his crew attempt to step away from the legends and prejudices and take an impartial look at what is actually said of medieval Europe by those who saw it. In so doing, these authors also establish a working model for recognizing and interpreting biased historiography.
Of initial concern to the historian is the issue of primary source bias. Costambeys wastes no ink getting around to the first such obstacle, beginning the introduction to The Carolingian World with the story of Pippin, King of the Franks and father of the future Charlemagne, playing host to the pope, Stephen II, in AD 753. Whatever the intents of the participants, “political significance was quickly heaped onto their meeting and within a few years the circumstances surrounding it were being intensively rewritten” as a biographer for the pope has Pippin kneeling in homage, contrary to the Frankish account where it is the priest of God who throws himself at the king’s feet. Having established a running theme for their work, Costambeys and company go on to construct their main arguments around the complexities of historical interpretation.
The Carolingians and their neighbors, it would seem, were eager to pass judgment upon their own world, much like opinion columnists of the present day, be it moralizing hagiography (saints’ lives), recounting the latest political shift, or looking back upon the mighty deeds of past men. Indeed, one of the challenges faced by historians is struggling through what Costambeys calls an “ideological legacy” that swiftly coalesced into “mythology,” whereby “posterity quickly canonised [sic] Pippin’s family as a benchmark for dynastic prestige. Thus the Carolingians came to be the “family who forged Europe,” their victories and defeats catalogued as a near-linear path to the Middle Ages. Indeed, the Carolingians themselves were guilty of “committing” teleology (an historical worldview that sees certain events as leading towards a predetermined conclusion; e.g. the Magna Carta, the Protestant Reformation, and the Stamp Act all leading unerringly to the Bill of Rights), such as Notker of St Gallen who in the 880s wrote of Charlemagne’s realm as “a divinely ordained successor to the great empires of the past.”
Such interpretations and revisions are by no means reserved for ancient sources. Historians researching the Carolingians have contributed their share of positive and negative teleology and ideology to compound the mystery of Europe’s First Family. Significant events are frequent victims. Enlightenment bias led Edward Gibbon to assert that Tours was a decisive battle that saved Europe from an encroaching Islam. The meeting between Pippin and the pope has long been considered “the most momentous act of the entire Middle Ages,” notably by the Belgian, Henri Pirenne, who saw this as one of many significant markers of a “new, specifically western, European civilization.” Some interpretations of the Ordinatio imperii that set forth rules and means for Louis’ successors (Charlemagne’s grandchildren) are based upon the ideals of 20th-century historians “living in an age of European fragmentation.” The French historian Louis Halphen allowed his memories of World War II to inspire the view of Carolingia “as a great tragedy of failed European unity.” Social history, too, has long been the playground of preconceived notions, often couched in terms of “‘continuity’ and ‘change’” from late antiquity to Medieval – thanks in part to the work of the likes of Pirenne, who saw “the Carolingian era as a millennium-long transformation” – rather than considering the Carolingians as a distinct era of their own; thus outside concepts such as Roman slavery or Medieval villages impose themselves upon an era that might have had institutions completely different, while historians of either adjacent period focus their research upon those subjects that most reflect their own field.
As they build a case for a more careful study of Carolingia, Costambeys and company demonstrate how such a study could be conducted by careful analysis of the primary sources. Carolingianists are quite blessed by the sheer volume of material to be considered, as the Carolingians produced an astonishing 9,000 surviving works, compared to the 1,800 works or fragments thereof that survive from those written on the continent before 800. Historical works are the most obvious (memoria, the collections of names of the dead; and historia, those annals and records of past deeds), legal charters (such as records of property granted to monasteries), polyptychs (records of estate management) and poetry (the final step in one’s education) constituting the written portion of Carolingian evidence. Archeology has recently entered the field as well, lending scientific insights previously unavailable to researchers – such as dietary superiority of aristocrats and the presence of “super emporia” in the northern sea-trade that suggest royal financing.
Perhaps the most important advice Costambeys emphasizes is that historians ought to take their primary sources with a grain of salt. With regards to Pippin’s rise to power, his initial appearance as “mayor of the palace” and his latter designation as “king of the Franks” (in charters dated AD 751 and 752 respectively) hint to Costambeys that other sources for the year 751 were actually written after Pippin’s death as means of easing the succession of his sons. Such revisionist history has been proven before, such as the accusation from a Chronicle that a certain noble invited Muslims into Francia in a direct prelude to the battle of Tours. The Carolingian World includes numerous similar examples. In the case of Charlemagne’s annexation of Bavaria, the Royal Frankish Annals appear to have been structured so as to indict the Bavarian ruler, Tassilo, with plots against the Franks, and make it out that Charlemagne – who at the time was relatively untried and facing a significant foe in Tassilo – was in total control. And in a more theatrical turn, the lengths to which contemporary authors went to express their grief at Charlemagne’s death is juxtaposed against his son Louis the Pious, who until the 1990s was characterized as a “hapless failure.”
A less obvious source of mistaken history comes in the form of sources that do not even tell readers what was true, but what should have been true, most clearly seen in the various rules issued by holy men like Amalarius of Metz in the 830s, and adopted by monasteries – these explain what the author believed was the proper means of carrying out certain monastic duties, but whether said duties were so executed remains unanswerable by the rules alone. In a related vein, different types of histories will make for different types of accounts, as Costambeys points out that the priorities of hagiographers differ from those of historians. Hence the necessity of viewing the Carolingian world through the eyes of those who lived there, the key argument in Costambeys’ book. And mere substitution will not do. Perhaps with good intentions, “moderns” both now and in the past have attempted to reconstruct periods under study, but as Costambeys points out, such reconstructions must be carried out honestly and in light of the actual sources; for example, the “Germanic” culture of the Dark Ages is “a modern invention” based upon the etymological association of gods’ names from Icelandic, Saxon, and Frisian traditions and can tell us nothing about what was actually believed in a given locale. Historians must also come to grips with the understanding that our knowledge is incomplete at best.
The approach best demonstrated in The Carolingian World is that of making educated inferences to avoid modernist misconceptions and to come up with original observations. Much is made of Charlemagne’s momentous coronation in Rome in 800, but a judicious consideration of the sources can lead to some startling revelations, such as the embassy from Byzantium around 798, which Charlemagne might have considered more politically important than a visit to St Peter’s see. Similarly, Costambeys shows how a historian can draw new conclusions by quoting Charlemagne’s frustration in 811 with corruption “in the counties” and surmising that, unlike past interpretations that the old king’s power was on the wane, there was a robust and functioning system of governance in place that some worthies had learned to play for their benefit.
Though rather dry and categorical, The Carolingian World makes for an excellent study in scholarly technique. While acknowledging where others have gone before, the authors put forward their own analyses winningly reasoned. It will be interesting to see whether their ideas generate criticism or take hold of other fields.
Every so often historians need to be reminded to “go back to the basics” and revisit established histories in an effort to discover new means of telling an old story. Answering the call for the “Dark Ages” of Carolingian history are Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, whose recent book, The Carolingian World, is intended to study “the contemporary sources [and to see what they] can tell us about the Carolingian period on its own terms.” Costambeys and his crew attempt to step away from the legends and prejudices and take an impartial look at what is actually said of medieval Europe by those who saw it. In so doing, these authors also establish a working model for recognizing and interpreting biased historiography.
Of initial concern to the historian is the issue of primary source bias. Costambeys wastes no ink getting around to the first such obstacle, beginning the introduction to The Carolingian World with the story of Pippin, King of the Franks and father of the future Charlemagne, playing host to the pope, Stephen II, in AD 753. Whatever the intents of the participants, “political significance was quickly heaped onto their meeting and within a few years the circumstances surrounding it were being intensively rewritten” as a biographer for the pope has Pippin kneeling in homage, contrary to the Frankish account where it is the priest of God who throws himself at the king’s feet. Having established a running theme for their work, Costambeys and company go on to construct their main arguments around the complexities of historical interpretation.
The Carolingians and their neighbors, it would seem, were eager to pass judgment upon their own world, much like opinion columnists of the present day, be it moralizing hagiography (saints’ lives), recounting the latest political shift, or looking back upon the mighty deeds of past men. Indeed, one of the challenges faced by historians is struggling through what Costambeys calls an “ideological legacy” that swiftly coalesced into “mythology,” whereby “posterity quickly canonised [sic] Pippin’s family as a benchmark for dynastic prestige. Thus the Carolingians came to be the “family who forged Europe,” their victories and defeats catalogued as a near-linear path to the Middle Ages. Indeed, the Carolingians themselves were guilty of “committing” teleology (an historical worldview that sees certain events as leading towards a predetermined conclusion; e.g. the Magna Carta, the Protestant Reformation, and the Stamp Act all leading unerringly to the Bill of Rights), such as Notker of St Gallen who in the 880s wrote of Charlemagne’s realm as “a divinely ordained successor to the great empires of the past.”
Such interpretations and revisions are by no means reserved for ancient sources. Historians researching the Carolingians have contributed their share of positive and negative teleology and ideology to compound the mystery of Europe’s First Family. Significant events are frequent victims. Enlightenment bias led Edward Gibbon to assert that Tours was a decisive battle that saved Europe from an encroaching Islam. The meeting between Pippin and the pope has long been considered “the most momentous act of the entire Middle Ages,” notably by the Belgian, Henri Pirenne, who saw this as one of many significant markers of a “new, specifically western, European civilization.” Some interpretations of the Ordinatio imperii that set forth rules and means for Louis’ successors (Charlemagne’s grandchildren) are based upon the ideals of 20th-century historians “living in an age of European fragmentation.” The French historian Louis Halphen allowed his memories of World War II to inspire the view of Carolingia “as a great tragedy of failed European unity.” Social history, too, has long been the playground of preconceived notions, often couched in terms of “‘continuity’ and ‘change’” from late antiquity to Medieval – thanks in part to the work of the likes of Pirenne, who saw “the Carolingian era as a millennium-long transformation” – rather than considering the Carolingians as a distinct era of their own; thus outside concepts such as Roman slavery or Medieval villages impose themselves upon an era that might have had institutions completely different, while historians of either adjacent period focus their research upon those subjects that most reflect their own field.
As they build a case for a more careful study of Carolingia, Costambeys and company demonstrate how such a study could be conducted by careful analysis of the primary sources. Carolingianists are quite blessed by the sheer volume of material to be considered, as the Carolingians produced an astonishing 9,000 surviving works, compared to the 1,800 works or fragments thereof that survive from those written on the continent before 800. Historical works are the most obvious (memoria, the collections of names of the dead; and historia, those annals and records of past deeds), legal charters (such as records of property granted to monasteries), polyptychs (records of estate management) and poetry (the final step in one’s education) constituting the written portion of Carolingian evidence. Archeology has recently entered the field as well, lending scientific insights previously unavailable to researchers – such as dietary superiority of aristocrats and the presence of “super emporia” in the northern sea-trade that suggest royal financing.
Perhaps the most important advice Costambeys emphasizes is that historians ought to take their primary sources with a grain of salt. With regards to Pippin’s rise to power, his initial appearance as “mayor of the palace” and his latter designation as “king of the Franks” (in charters dated AD 751 and 752 respectively) hint to Costambeys that other sources for the year 751 were actually written after Pippin’s death as means of easing the succession of his sons. Such revisionist history has been proven before, such as the accusation from a Chronicle that a certain noble invited Muslims into Francia in a direct prelude to the battle of Tours. The Carolingian World includes numerous similar examples. In the case of Charlemagne’s annexation of Bavaria, the Royal Frankish Annals appear to have been structured so as to indict the Bavarian ruler, Tassilo, with plots against the Franks, and make it out that Charlemagne – who at the time was relatively untried and facing a significant foe in Tassilo – was in total control. And in a more theatrical turn, the lengths to which contemporary authors went to express their grief at Charlemagne’s death is juxtaposed against his son Louis the Pious, who until the 1990s was characterized as a “hapless failure.”
A less obvious source of mistaken history comes in the form of sources that do not even tell readers what was true, but what should have been true, most clearly seen in the various rules issued by holy men like Amalarius of Metz in the 830s, and adopted by monasteries – these explain what the author believed was the proper means of carrying out certain monastic duties, but whether said duties were so executed remains unanswerable by the rules alone. In a related vein, different types of histories will make for different types of accounts, as Costambeys points out that the priorities of hagiographers differ from those of historians. Hence the necessity of viewing the Carolingian world through the eyes of those who lived there, the key argument in Costambeys’ book. And mere substitution will not do. Perhaps with good intentions, “moderns” both now and in the past have attempted to reconstruct periods under study, but as Costambeys points out, such reconstructions must be carried out honestly and in light of the actual sources; for example, the “Germanic” culture of the Dark Ages is “a modern invention” based upon the etymological association of gods’ names from Icelandic, Saxon, and Frisian traditions and can tell us nothing about what was actually believed in a given locale. Historians must also come to grips with the understanding that our knowledge is incomplete at best.
The approach best demonstrated in The Carolingian World is that of making educated inferences to avoid modernist misconceptions and to come up with original observations. Much is made of Charlemagne’s momentous coronation in Rome in 800, but a judicious consideration of the sources can lead to some startling revelations, such as the embassy from Byzantium around 798, which Charlemagne might have considered more politically important than a visit to St Peter’s see. Similarly, Costambeys shows how a historian can draw new conclusions by quoting Charlemagne’s frustration in 811 with corruption “in the counties” and surmising that, unlike past interpretations that the old king’s power was on the wane, there was a robust and functioning system of governance in place that some worthies had learned to play for their benefit.
Though rather dry and categorical, The Carolingian World makes for an excellent study in scholarly technique. While acknowledging where others have gone before, the authors put forward their own analyses winningly reasoned. It will be interesting to see whether their ideas generate criticism or take hold of other fields.
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