Be a Perfect Man: Christian Masculinity and Carolingian Aristocracy by Andrew J. Romig

Abstract

Reviewed by: Be a Perfect Man: Christian Masculinity and Carolingian Aristocracy by Andrew J. Romig Peter Phillip Jones Andrew J. Romig, Be a Perfect Man: Christian Masculinity and Carolingian Aristocracy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2017) 253 pp. Andrew Romig puts forward a novel approach with this concise yet provocative study of Carolingian aristocratic masculinity. Taking its title from the Liber Manualis, written by Dhuoda of Septimania for her son William in the mid-ninth century, Romig's book argues that throughout the Carolingian realm—beginning during the time of the dynasty's greatest ruler, Charlemagne—the aristocracy subscribed to a discourse of empathy centered on caritas, a complex notion of "complete and all-inclusive love" (3), the exercise of which was the highest calling for the aristocratic male. A theological idiom for empathy, Romig traces caritas as an ideal for Christian living, from the writings of Augustine of Hippo at the turn of the fifth century to the reigns of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and his sons, before ending with a discussion of caritas' weakening and reconfiguration in the tenth century. Made up of five chapters, plus the introduction and conclusion, the work chronologically explores the definitions, valuations, and associations that accompany caritas through these centuries. Overall, Romig makes a persuasive case for understanding the Carolingians as representing a peculiar moment in history, where lay and religious aristocratic authority became equally reliant upon the same cultural valuation of love, a reliance that limited hierarchization according to one's access to divine power. And while the absence of hard evidence prevents Romig's conclusions from being demonstrated in both Carolingian ideology and reality, his subtle adjustments to the scholarly consensus seem to permit a more sensitive reading of key texts. Where many have viewed Carolingian attempts to instate new moral norms throughout the kingdom as having failed, Romig makes a compelling case for understanding their (at least temporary) success. Where others have seen only idiosyncrasy, Romig teases out a logic that simultaneously familiarizes and maintains a distinctiveness for a Carolingian moral ideology. In Chapter One, "The Authority of the Ascetic Male," Romig articulates the connection between caritas, asceticism, and manliness, to which he goes on to frequently refer in subsequent chapters. Beginning with Augustine of Hippo's interpretation of New Testament ethics and his confrontations of Stoic and Manichean moral philosophies, Romig identifies the establishment of new linguistic associations for terms such as pietas, clementia, and misericordia that [End Page 270] shifted these terms away from Stoic concerns regarding the proper balance of severity and leniency in the service of justice, and toward an all-embracing love that would become the discourse of caritas. The philosophical position carved by Augustine out of the New Testament is then taken and further configured by Gregory the Great into an ideology of Christian male authority in his Book of Pastoral Rule. In Chapter Two, "Manifestos of Carolingian Power," Romig sets the stage by beginning with arguably the most important document of the Carolingian renovatio: the Admonitio Generalis. Countering previous scholarly consensus regarding both the document's intended scope and its success, Romig places it squarely at the beginning of what he sees as an ideological campaign to culturally embed caritas among the Frankish aristocracy. Mediating between scholarly opinions on Charlemagne's state of mind at the time of the reforms articulated in the Admonitio, Romig believes we can read in Charlemagne at this time both strength and weakness—a recognition of the Franks' unprecedented successes in bringing the realm under their control, an apprehension about future blessings, and a pledge to redouble efforts to be deserving of those blessings. Romig then proceeds to examine the works of Paulinus of Aquileia and Alcuin of York, two champions of Charlemagne's reformatory manifesto. These two eminent scholars adapted the ideology detailed by Augustine, and further articulated by Gregory the Great, into an "universal ideology for all Frankish aristocratic men" (8). The Admonitio put the future of the realm in the hands of the aristocracy; Paulinus and Alcuin's writing to encourage Eric of Friuli and Count Wido of Brittany (respectively) to embrace this discourse of caritas attests to this larger agenda. In Chapter Three, "Louis...