Tolkien's Take on Arianism

Lovers of English and snark have yet another reason to rejoice.  I had heard once from a friend that Tolkien took it upon himself to set Hitler straight on the infamous notion of the Aryan race, and a quick google search pulled up this classy blog: Letters of Note.  The entry in question concerns a letter written by Tolkien in response to a German publisher's query as to his lineage, as a copy of The Hobbit would presumably be denied print if Tolkien failed to prove his Arianism.  Though famous for his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was also a peerless linguist with a far superior understanding of linguistic/cultural history than der Fuehrer, and his response is a fitting put-down (it is unknown whether his publisher sent it).

De Jong’s Penitents

Mayke de Jong. The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 

814-840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Acts of public humiliation may not often be seen as a strength, but that is what Mayke de Jong argues in her 2009 book, The Penitential State.  Calling for a reevaluation of Louis the Pious’ infamous humiliation in the presence of God and country in 833, de Jong takes on the claims that this was a simple coup and argues instead for a complex system of admonition and penance in nine-century Frankia.  By mining primary sources in an attempt to establish an understanding of Carolinian opinion of the day, de Jong builds up a world where politics and awareness of sin were inextricably entwined. 

The Penitential State functions very well as a narrative, thanks to De Jong’s great interest in the tales themselves, allowing her to present a story rather than relying on mundane critical analysis.  Largely a text-based work, the book uses histories and the written results of synods and capitularies to discover their authors’ views, preserving the living narrative and keeping the book moving.  The depth of de Jong’s analysis and the name-dropping, both ancient and modern, should appeal to experts in the field, and the flowing readability makes the book palatable to interested newcomers.  However, despite her best efforts to the contrary, de Jong’s use of categories does occasionally wander off into confusing date-hopping and her sources, while excellent on the literary plane, remain lacking in other respects, with little-to-no reference to archeology or paleography (that is, the study of writing and the treatment of documents as objects for study), which would probably have worked well in conjunction with her study of piety. 

The sources de Jong does choose to utilize are many and varied.  Telling her story of sin and penance through contemporary eyes, these so-called “ninth-century narratives” were chosen based upon their authors’ political clout, as all were involved (or claimed to be) with Louis’ court and many placed themselves into the story as players in the great affairs of the state.   Admirably, de Jong remains careful to place arguments in the mouths of those who made them, but occasionally she seems to let her pro-Louis bias take the lead, as when she turns to the Astronomer for justification of an aging Louis as hardy peacemaker.   Besides this otherwise nameless cleric (author of the Vita Hludowici imperatoris), de Jong draws upon the Royal Frankish Annals, Einhard’s Vita Karoli, the bishop Thegan’s Deeds of Louis, Ermold the Black’s attempt to “literally … write himself back into Aquitaine,” from his exile in Strasbourg, Nithard’s dour Historiae, angry Radbert (author of the Vita Adalhardi and Epitaphium Arsenii) and the omnipresent Walahfrid Strabo, often used as a cross-reference to join together the primary sources.   Far from being merely windows into the past (albeit occasionally close) these sources are mined to determine what was said in the ninth century and to ascertain the tone of political life.   On the modern end of the spectrum, de Jong takes care to not isolate herself from the historical narratives of today, citing the opinions of Christina Pössel, Julia Smith, Janet Nelson, Matthew Innes, and Rosamond McKitterick, among others. 

In keeping with its subtitle, The Penitential State focuses a great deal of attention upon authority and atonement and how they influenced one another throughout the reign of Louis.  Upon succeeding his father, Charlemagne, Louis demonstrates his kingly authority through “assemblies and councils [which] were ideal platforms for the representation of royal authority.  Here, Louis publicly became the Christian emperor, responsible for the salvation of his people.”   De Jong delves into the Latin, beginning with the notion of constructive criticism, or “constructive admonitio” which introduces the Carolingian notions of authority and correction.   Having been granted ministerium (divinely bestowed office) kings often engaged in admonitio, as when Louis called upon the bishops gathered at Aachen in 816 “to look into the lack of hospitality in religious communities, and into the insufficient learning of canons.”   But with ministerium came the weighty responsibility of promoting the public good, as well as the sin of neglect, or negligentia.   To combat neglect and faulty ruling, good Carolingians were willing to suffer naysayers at court, provided their admonitions remained within reasonable bounds – consequently, admonitio was most often carefully crafted to avoid the appearance of “brazen presumption.”   From admonitio the criticisms grew harsher in the forms of correptio (akin to reproach or blame), increpatio (“morally charged rebukes or wrath”), and the furious invectio.   Corresponding to this hierarchy of admonition went the “vocabulary of sin,” featuring such niceties as iniquitas, scandalum, and negligentia, this latter used frequently, says de Jong, in the Carolingian context.   Indeed, these Carolingians took their admonitio very seriously, especially when it occurred in a religious context, as de Jong speculates is the case in the instance of Charlemagne’s purgatorial torment, as recounted in the Visio Wettini – just criticism was not to be lightly brushed aside. 

Atonement enters the narrative three years after Louis restored his authority following an ugly family squabble in 830 that resulted from his sons’ irritation over Louis’ redrawing of the royal inheritance to make way for the newest son by way of a new queen, Judith.  Once more at violent odds with his boys in 833, Louis’ actions (again redrawing the succession map to punish his wayward sons and reward those previously faithful) were used against him under claims of forcing perjury upon his subjects by way of multiple, conflicting oaths.   In addition, the political situation was primed for such a coup: in the years previous, Frankia had been struck by a series of unsettling events and reports of unnatural phenomena bespeaking of divine wrath, culminating in the disturbing admonitio from none other than a demonically possessed child.   The author of this account was undoubtedly as distraught as the exorcist on site and de Jong interprets his tale as one incriminating not only the Frankish people but also their king as chief minister of the flock.   When Judith was accused of adultery during the row of 830, priests had been described as armed with “penitential literature, which presented the [holy men] as the ‘good doctor’ ready to cure his patient of the illness caused by sin.”   And as events fell out on the Field of Lies, wherein the followers of Louis went over to the rebellious Lothar, the clergymen prepared themselves with the strong-arm of church doctrine.   In the official Relatio produced by the bishops to defend their position (and provided by de Jong in an appendix) the authors invoke the authority granted to the church by Christ through Matthew 18:18 and the warning related in Ezekiel 3:18 that a man would suffer for keeping quiet in the face of another’s sin.   In light of this, the bishops claimed the authority to condemn Louis’ sin of negligentia and to speak admonitio to him, upon which the monarch – in their words – “willingly took their redeeming admonition and their fitting and apt rebuke to heart.” 

Louis was no stranger to penance, as he had already committed an act of public humility with regards to fraternal strife in 822, an action that had only enhanced his Christian standing and placed him on par with his spiritually imperial predecessor, Theodosius I, famous for his own penitentiary demonstration some four hundred years prior.   In the case of this latter display, de Jong argues that context is everything, that the penance undergone by Louis “makes sense only if one accepts that there was an emperor who, together with his bishops and magnates, feared divine retribution as the inevitable consequence of sin, and directed his policies accordingly.”   In any event, the outcome of the public humiliation remained unclear, as evidenced by the bishops’ attempts to finalize the episode with oaths.   However, Louis still had room to wiggle and consequently refused to take up a permanent monastic retirement, and in time his rebellious sons had so fallen out that he was able to return to power and put Lothar in his place: ironically, it was the son who finally came to his father as a supplicant.   Predictably, Louis then went on the offensive, claiming that it was all coercion and abuse, and up to the very end, Louis continued to punish his sons by re-dividing the empire. 

The Penitential State is a remarkably readable and authoritative work.  Through extensive use of her primary sources, de Jong builds a case for a Carolingian polity that was genuinely religious, even at their most extreme.  “Rather than a police state, we are dealing with a political elite that was markedly preoccupied with sin and salvation – their own and those of the ‘Christian people’ that made up the Frankish polity.”

Garver’s Carolingian Women

Valerie L. Garver. Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2009.

For those who are tired about reading the history of “dead white men,” Valerie L. Garver has provided an alternative look at the equally dead alternative.  Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World is 381 pages of analysis that takes into consideration both the clerical ideal of women and the actual circumstances of their lives and argues that “women, especially elite women, were active participants in shaping and perpetuating the behaviors, beliefs, and practices that marked the culture of the Carolingian lands between c. 700 and c. 925.”   Garver’s women essentially act behind the scenes, building and holding together the world in which their men act, but while her evidence is used well and her arguments reasonable, Garver at times allows her numerous assumptions to take control of the narrative.

The structure of Women and Aristocratic Culture is based upon the “four reasons why men desire women” outlined by Jonas of Orléans in the 820s: “family prudence, wealth, and beauty.”   Each of the chapters is devoted to one of these themes, with the all-important work of textile production added as a bonus fifth.  Throughout the work, one of the most prominent themes – and one in keeping with Jonas’ ideals – is the notion that Carolingian women complimented and enhanced their men  and families.  The ideal woman was the most desirable enhancement, and according to the poem Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, almost literally a physical treasure, shining in beatific glory that originated not only from herself, but also the rich ornaments festooning her person.   Thus, in her first chapter Garver determines that beautiful women, decked out in their Sunday best, were physical manifestations of their men’s status and wealth.   But more than mere centerpieces to familial standing, women had active roles as the glue that bound families together and as the means for perpetuating family memories and heritage.  Whether through marriage or convent, women were instrumental in shaping their families fortunes, for while Garver characterizes men as the “social face” of clan politics, women acted behind the scenes, praying for the dead as nuns, offering hospitality as wives, and in both capacities honoring those with whom they wished alliance by gifting hand-crafted textiles.   In addition to prayer, Garver repeatedly drives home the thesis that women “kept alive the memory of their family members and others by writing about them”  (but the strange emphasis almost takes on the assumption that, somehow, men were not doing that very thing).  In this she fleshes out the passing statement made by Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean in The Carolingian World.

Memory is very important to Garver, and so is continuity, her book establishing connections throughout between the late-antique past and the Carolingian era, for “The originality of the Carolingian renaissance rested upon an ability to draw from older texts and traditions while applying them to contemporary exigencies.”   For example, prayer and remembrance was nothing new, as “Carolingian female preservation of familial memory had roots in late antiquity and in the Merovingian and Lombard kingdoms.”   But while many other Carolingian practices, such as keeping ornamental birds  – harking back to Paul Edward Dutton’s Charlemagne’s Mustache – and the production of textiles , were the continuation of ages-old practice, the most compelling argument for continuity comes from the written sources.  Many of those cited by Garver are clerical in nature, written in a pastoral context.  The Carolingians were interested in women acting as moral exemplars within their own spheres, a desire that “drew from late antique ideals” such as the writings of Jerome.   Churchmen’s denunciation of vanity similarly enjoyed a long tradition of exhortation, from the Hebrew Scriptures to the early church fathers in the second-to-fifth centuries.   Yet while biblical allusions and allegory dominate, other classical elements informed the authors’ styles; thus in writing “On the Court” and Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, the authors drew upon motifs from Virgil’s Aeneid.   Moreover, Garver laments the lack of reliable examples of Carolingian dress, as “illuminations and textual descriptions of dress are often drawn from antique sources and were meant to convey certain religious, political, and social messages more than describe dress through accurate observation.”   Yet for all her proof of continuity, such is not the thesis of Garver’s work, and thus other hot-button issues of history escape close scrutiny.

The issue of defining the Carolingian court is a thorny issue and in Charlemagne Rosamond McKitterick devoted a great deal of ink to the argument over whether or not the Carolingians had a court and the attendant administrative structure, or just a glorified posse that followed the king from manor to manor.  For her part, Garver seems to believe that a stable court existed, at least in the popular sense, for she makes broad, matter-of-fact statements, such as acknowledging the Carolingians’ emphasis upon women’s reforming roles as a source of agency for controlling their surroundings, the court included.   Here the court is the center of Politics, where young men go to finish their militant education  and young ladies meet future husbands with whom to establish more family bonds – or to pursue a lady’s education  – if their over-protective parents do not commit them to the comparative safety of convents.  Though not examined in any detail, one gets the impression that Garver’s court is an established culture, for not only was one young noble, William, taken away from his mother Dhuoda, she also warned him to avoid the temptations likely habitual to courtly life.   Yet it is apparent that court was nothing like a continuous community as what one might imagine of, say, a parliament; for Garver points out – in another elated aside about building bonds – that the great men of the realm came to court for assemblies , indicating that there were at least spurts of activity, or perhaps a continual flow of coming and going.  What appears concrete is the notion that this was a dangerous milieu that required practice and experience to navigate successfully, at least insofar as Garver can tell from the work On the Governance of the Palace by Hincmar of Rheims.   With this in mind, it is not surprising that Garver’s following observation is that aristocratic families “almost certainly did not want young, unmarried female kin to go to court as their young brothers did.”   In the final analysis, the court – whatever organizational features it bore – was the place to further one’s goals and those of the family – except for young girls, whose medium was the convent.

By her own admission, Garver relies upon educated guesswork to reach her conclusions, though some of her ideas are a bit of a stretch.  “In order to study some areas, particularly household management,” Garver says as she attempts to justify such leaps, “I suggest the activities for which women almost certainly had responsibility based on the existing evidence.  For example, according to prescriptive texts, gardening seems a probable activity of religious and lay aristocratic women, and the discovery of a watering can at an excavation of the convent of Herford helps to bolster the veracity of that impression.”   Many such leaps are similarly benign, yet a few such slips seem to undermine Garver’s key arguments, such as her fascination with women as bearers of identity.  In the case of Dhuoda, the laywoman often cited for her singular volume of advice for her teenaged son (this document’s unique nature does warrant remark from Garver ), her exhortations to pray for many listed relatives is used to back up Garver’s argument that women of all elite ranks, religious and otherwise, were actively transmitting memory.   Yet this same illustration also serves to undermine her argument for this “womanly duty,” as William’s own prayers are suddenly appropriated for memorial maintenance, thus placing this burden upon both sexes and alerting the reader to the broader implication of mutual participation.  That is not to say that all such educated guesses are poorly done.  There is an especially clever moment where Garver points out that the word for the officer given charge over the larder was the feminine  cellararia, thus implying positions open to, or possibly especially for, women.   But at the far opposite end of this endeavor is the seemingly absurd assumption that, because women did not often write about the colors of textiles and their meanings, as men did, the ladies somehow “were probably not aware of such meanings.”

Women and Aristocratic Culture is nonetheless a book well done.  Garver’s meticulous use of “textiles, exegesis, archaeological remains, poetry, liturgy, letters, inventories, lay mirrors, charters, polyptychs, capitularies, church councils, hagiography, and memorial books”  attempts to recreate an entire world of elite women and is a demonstration of what the eagle-eyed scholar can produce.  Suitable for the student with a general understanding of Carolingian culture, Garver’s work is certainly inspiration for future work on medieval gender.

Image taken from Tower.com

And now for something completely different: Politics

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.

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. 

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.

Colley's "Britons"

Back from the dead! This next entry is a small affair that will prayerfully lead to greater things. I've a few more reviews that I'd like to post in the coming days/weeks, so please return to check up on those - or stop by just for the fun of reading my other posts, I appreciate both!

Linda Colley. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

In her 1992 publication, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, Linda Colley explores the “forging of the British nation between the Act of Union joining Scotland to England and Wales in 1707 and the formal beginning of the Victorian age in 1837” by following the dual trends of citizen identity and worldview, and the slow development of a “British national identity,” set against the backdrop of near-perpetual conflict with France. What becomes evident as the reader continues is that the British nation of this period is not quite as united as its proponents should like, and right up to Britons’ conclusion simmering unrest and popular irritation strive with the longsuffering champions of unity. Colley’s take on Great Britain’s political and social evolution is both insightful and pessimistic, building up for the Britons an inflated sense of self seemingly at the expense of author objectivity.

Remarkably, Colley manages to present a categorical tale of British history that nonetheless flows in chronological order. Beginning with an examination of the triumph of sixteenth-century Protestantism, Britons addresses trade, boundaries, the aristocratic and royal powers, the “separate spheres” of men and women, and the social changes that eventually culminated in universal suffrage. Colley allows her talking points to flow freely, knitting divergent themes of power politics, religion, and social anxieties into a seamless historical narrative. Much (indeed perhaps all) of Colley’s evidence is print-based, whether county registers, newsprint, diaries, or the prolific political cartoons. These are carefully dissected for social meaning in such a way that, regardless of whether her opinions are correct, one cannot accuse Colley of neglecting her homework.

Colley’s interpretations of most any meeting of ink and parchment typically manifest in claims of anxiety-ridden propaganda, such as James Gillray’s Buonaparte 48 hours after Landing! which weds British patriotic feeling with aristocratic unease at the notion of a gentleman’s execution by the masses. At times Colley seems to take the propaganda theorist act too far, her interpretations often based upon the villainy of religion, and one wonders at the sheer negativity that Colley channels in her recurrent examination of Protestantism. Although her cases are often winningly reasoned, they suffer from a markedly one-sided bent, such as when Colley renders Thomas Coram’s rescue of orphans ultimately soulless, smoothly insisting that – all selfless motives aside – the philanthropist only wanted to flesh out Great Britain’s labor force. Similarly, the desire to emancipate black slaves is largely stripped of religious inspiration, a small allowance for humanitarian interest hastily injected then abandoned in favor of an economic explanation and a more patriotic belief in the façade of Free Britain. Even social movements are overcast by a diabolically religious tone, made out to be themselves objects of worship. Popular “cults” dominate Britons’ pages like the darkling silhouette of a Hellenic deity – cults of commerce and trade, cults of juvenile fortitude, of heroism, of “heroic endeavor and aggressive maleness,” of female propriety, and even a bizarre pseudo cult of the Virgin, tailored to the tastes of deprived protestant ladies – each lovingly embellished by Colley’s merciless psychoanalysis.

Despite these biases, Britons is an excellent read for the student of Georgian England thanks to its broad range of topics presented in so manageable a volume. In a mere 384 pages, Colley offers a look into the foundations for the world and worldview of the British Empire’s “home” residents, demonstrating how Britons saw themselves and their world, and thus providing a point of reference for readers curious about this era.

Image from Tower.com