Reading Guide, Week 7: the Carolingians
A. Einhard, Life of Charlemagne (written before 840)
Charlemagne (French for "Charles the Great") was the second king from
the Carolingian dynasty of the Franks. The previous Frankish dynasty
(the Merovingians, founded by Clovis) had declined in power by the early
8th century, and in 754 Charlemagne's father, Pippin the Short, led a bloodless
coup that toppled the last Merovingian. Charlemagne, who ruled from
768 to 814, was both one of the most powerful monarchs of his day and the
model and inspiration for a whole host of subsequent political, military
and literary developments. Charles was an impressive warrior, a determined
law-giver, a serious reformer of judicial and religious institutions, and
a patron of educational and artistic reform. Charlemagne and many
of his contemporaries considered that Charlemagne had effected a renovatio
romani imperii (restoration of the Roman Empire). The summit of Charles'
ambitions and symbolic actions came on Christmas Day of the year 800, when
he was solemnly crowned "Roman Emperor" in Rome by the Bishop of Rome (aka,
the pope). Einhard was a cleric working in Charlemagne's court.
He composed his Life during the generation after Charles' death in 814.
Be sure to take notice of the fact that when Einhard set out to compose
his Life he modeled it on the Roman historian Suetonius' Life of Augustus
(Augustus was the first Roman Emperor; the Life was written c.140
AD); this his highly significant, as we must look somewhat critically at
the parts of Einhard's text that seem ‘too' Roman. Despite
Einhard's efforts to convince his reader that Charlemagne was Augustus
reincarnated, we need to remember that Charlemagne was at base a Germanic
warrior.
1. What did Einhard intend by modeling Charlemagne's life on that of
Augustus?
2. From what we know of the Roman emperors, how "Roman" was Charlemagne
really? How "Germanic"? Try to separate the features of his life into German
and Roman elements.
3. According to Einhard, what were Charlemagne's most important virtues?
his most significant flaws?
4. What made for a good king according to Einhard? What function did
the king play in Carolingian society?
5. What was Charlemagne's relationship with the church? What were the
proper roles of Emperor, pope and bishop in Carolingian society?
7. How did Charlemagne treat his family? What did he think about
marriage, divorce, sexual habits, etc?
6. From this text, can we piece together anything about the daily life
of the Carolingian age?
8. What do we learn about Carolingian government, law and order, and
justice from this text?
9. Compare and contrast Charlemagne and Clovis. Both were Franks, and
both succeeded in welding together an enormous kingdom. Do they act similarly?
Do they share characteristics? Do they differ? How?
B. Selected Capitularies (Geary, 281-303) Check the syllabus for
which capitularies you need to read.
Capitularies were quasi-legal, quasi-administrative documents issued
by Frankish kings. In a way they were like individual rulings by a modern
court, designed to apply to a particular circumstance or category of circumstances.
What they were not was comprehensive and systematic. Each year a
responsible king would listen to his advisors to determine what problems
existed in his kingdom, and would then issue appropriate capitularies designed
to end those problems. Very rarely he would issue a general capitulary,
which would encompass more than a particular region and which might treat
a wider variety of issues. Missi were literally "those sent out"
by the king to promulgate and enforce his capitularies. Usually the
missi worked in pairs, and would have the responsibility to bring the year's
capitularies to a series of counties in their particular circuit.
Notice that capitularies reflected what the king wanted to occur, not necessarily
what actually happened. The same old problem of communication between center
and periphery continued to impede the ability of kings such as Charlemagne
to make his will felt. Note: "capitulary" comes from the Latin ‘capitulum'
(‘chapter'). That is, each capitulary comprised several chapters or clauses.
1. General
a. what sort of document is a capitulary? What features mark its genre?
How would you recognize one?
b. what purpose or goal did capitularies serve? How effective were
they?
c. what sorts of things did capitularies tend to treat or cover? Are
there any patterns?
d. compare and contrast capitularies with the old Salic Law.
Salic Law was still the basis of Frankish
‘law', but capitularies
could add to or interpret features that were unclear or lacking.
e. Note: capitularies are named (by modern historians) by the place
and date where they were issued. A
few have come to be described
by their content.
f. the capitularies provide us with a much less overtly biased set
of texts from which to evaluate Charlemagne's
claim to have ‘revived the
Roman Empire'. Use them to look for traditionally Germanic or Roman
practices. Look also for
reforms, or changes.
2. Capitulary of Herstal, 779
a. what religious authority does Charlemagne seem to have? Is this
surprising? Why or why not?
b. what reforms is the king attempting to implement? Why?
c. Chapter 13 concerns the ‘census', or head-tax which Charlemagne
levied on all areas that did not
possess an ‘immunity' or
‘exemption'. What does this tell us about his royal authority? About the
nature
of the Frankish kingdom?
Is there a ‘state'?
d. Do you see any traditionally ‘Germanic' cultural practices in this
text? Where?
e. Look at Chapter 21. What other roles do the missi play? (In other
words, they weren't just postmen).
How common do you think
it was for counts ‘not to do justice'?
f. Chapter 22: what's going on here? Are you surprised? Why or why
not?
3. Capitulary of Paderborn, 785
a. As Einhard tells us, Charles spent almost 30 years fighting the
Saxons (in northern Germany). The Saxons'
unwillingness to be conquered
and converted meant that Charles had to issue a number of capitularies
to
his men concerning the fate
of the Saxons. This is one.
b. What religious role is Charles taking in Saxony?
c. Are the clauses in this capitulary particular to Saxony (still pagan)?
Why? What evidence have we?
d. what are the counts supposed to do in Saxony?
e. How much real control does the king seem to have over the local
regions of his kingdom?
4. The Synod of Frankfurt, 794
a. this ‘capitulary' reflects the decisions made at an important general
assembly of the Franks in 794.
b. Does Charles simply leave religious matters to the church? Why or
why not?
c. What does the case of Tassilo of Bavaria tell us about the Frankish
world?
d. Charles attempted to reform the coinage - locate evidence of this
in the acts of the Synod.
e. Note the nice example of compurgation in chapter 9.
f. What does Charles' social legislation tell us about the world of
the Franks?
5. The Capitulary de Villis ("concerning estates"), late 8th century
(one of the most famous capitularies)
a. what are the general goals of this capitulary?
b. why did Charles have this capitulary drawn up?
c. What sorts of burdens or obligations did inhabitants of royal estates
owe?
d. Try to piece together a picture of life on one of these villas (estates).
What were the components of a villa?
What sorts of things might
be grown or produced there?
e. note: a villa, or estate, was composed of many tiny ‘manses' (mansi)
on which individual tenants lived. These tenants
had lands set aside for
their use, but also generally owed significant labor on the collective
portions of the villa.
Do you find evidence of
this in the text?
6. General Capitulary for the missi, 802 CE
a. notice that this capitulary was issued after Charles' coronation
as emperor in 800.
b. what were Charles' chief concerns in 802? How were the missi to
carry them out?
c. what seems to be Charles' attitude toward a good old-fashioned Frankish
feud? Why?