Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni: Dialogue with Classical Genre

Abstract

Vita Karoli Magni (The Life of Charlemagne) was the first medieval biography. It was written by Einhard, a prominent figure of the Carolingian era, who used some biographies of Roman emperors by Suetonius. This article introduces a comparative analysis of Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni and Suetonius’ biographies in terms of structure and composition. The main research objectives were to define to what degree Einhard followed the chosen pattern, as well as to identify the new features the medieval biography acquired as compared with the texts by Suetonius. The study involved descriptive, cultural-historical, comparative-historical, historical-genetic, and formal methods. The author questioned the generally accepted opinion that Einhard relied on Suetonius’s texts. The texts by Einhard and Suetonius are similar in macro-composition, but the former was affected by the Christian tradition of heroic narrative. Suetonius’s stories resembled a friendly conversation that could embrace different points of view. However, Einhard wrote an encomium that was to offer its readers an ideal image of a king. His biography was compiled according to the three-part scheme, typical of hagiographies.