Science in the service of melodrama: Remembering the Carolingians in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Using as a case study the historical representation of Charlemagne’s son Emperor Louis the Pious (r. 814–840) and his enemies, this article demonstrates that the pervasive interest in drama during the nineteenth century often informed the writing of historical narrative, which bent its ‘scientific’ claims to accord with dramatic conventions. Central to drama was the exploration of distinct traits of the human condition – apparently timeless and universal motives, interests, and passions – that made it seem a generic form perfectly suited to the historian’s craft. Such melodramatic, ‘spectacular’ history has left a tenacious legacy, and it is one with which historians continue to struggle in their post-historicist attempts to narrate in an honest way the lives of people from the pre-modern past.