Abstract
Readers of the Astronomer's ninth-century biography of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious have long tried to make sense of a curious critique in its preface concerning the emperor's extreme capacity to forgive. Written in a fluid and erudite Latin, evocative of classical styles yet bearing the distinct stamp of Carolingian innovation, the Astronomer's Vita Hludowici imperatoris begins by claiming that the memorialization of past princes can be of great use to the present for the teaching of correct behavior. Louis the Pious, it says, embodied four virtues in particular. He was in life a paragon of temperance, the personification of wisdom, an unwavering devotee of justice, and the epitome of manly courage; “he clung so fully to their company,” the text says fawningly, “that you did not know which one to admire more in him.” Still, it continues, “the envious could find only one fault to which he had succumbed: he was too merciful (nimis clemens).”
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