Carolingian Culture Research Articles

Weeds and the Carolingians. Empire, Culture, and Nature in Frankish Europe, AD 750–900. By Paolo Squatriti

This study is, to my knowledge, the first of its kind: an entire book devoted to historical weed studies, drawing upon documentary sources, archaeological remains, art history, botany, theology and anthropology to build up a picture of weeds—in agricultural, ecological, political and religious contexts—in Carolingian Europe, AD 750-900. The blurb begins, “Why did weeds matter in the Carolingian empire?” It may be a surprise to some readers to learn that they mattered at all, at least in a way that was especially and specifically significant to the Carolingian world. The question in fact arises, as Squatriti eloquently explains, from motifs and preoccupations apparent in the rich literary legacy of Carolingian culture. There is the unusual imagery of the weeder sovereign, for instance, and the philosophical wrangling over the position of imperfect plants in a perfect Creation. The practical business of contending with weeds in gardens and fields is also considered, and directly contrasted with the more esoteric concerns of the Carolingian “discourse community.”

L’Ordre du Temple dans la Basse Vallée du Rhône (1124–1312) by Damien Carraz

Reviewed by: L’Ordre du Temple dans la Basse Vallée du Rhône (1124–1312) by Damien Carraz Michael Peixoto L’Ordre du Temple dans la Basse Vallée du Rhône (1124–1312). By Damien Carraz. (Lyon: Lyon University Press. 2020. Pp. 608. €35,00. ISBN: 9782729712129.) Originally published in 2005, this edition offers an updated re-issue of one of the most important recent contributions to the history of the military orders and the Crusades. While Dr. Carraz’s work centers on the lower Rhône region, the implications of his detailed study show how Templar activity in the region rippled through the medieval world. As an area that provided both rural economic opportunities, access to Mediterranean trade routes, a legacy of Carolingian culture, and persisting Roman urban centers, the Rhône valley offers an ideal case study for Templar activity outside of the Holy Land. Carraz brings together a comprehensive study of the documentary records (1,600 documents) of the Knights Templar along with archeological and narrative sources. Such exhaustive research allows Carraz to examine nearly every aspect of Templar life. He estimates numbers of written transactions, populations of Templar houses, tenure of individual commanders, internal organizational structures for house, and patronage relationships with regional elites to name just a few (chapter 5). The sources for the Templars in the south of France are especially rich and unique as local houses compiled cartularies, like their northern counterparts, but also drew from the local notarial culture and the more routine written transactional practices that accompanied it. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Templars were an omnipresent feature of the social and geographical landscape of the south of France. Their earliest establishments are recorded in donations dating to 1124, five years before the official foundations of the order in the Council of Troyes (p. 82). As much as the nobility supported the Templars, who were able to tap into a fervor of crusading support, much of the property attained by the Templars came by way of purchase. Templars consolidated land, making the most of donations by buying and selling to maximize efficiency. Carraz distinguishes the activities of urban houses from their rural and semi-urban counterparts, showing how urban houses were able to draw on trade networks and greater access to capital from ports, markets, and roads, while rural houses focused on natural resources. Templars similarly utilized their diversity of houses to appeal to different types of supporters. [End Page 185] The Templars played an important role in the religious landscape of southern France. Part of the early enthusiasm for the founding of local Templar houses came from the experience of inter-religious conflict and specifically the fear of Muslim piracy (p. 55). But Templars also offered a way to engage in religious life beyond traditional monasticism. In this capacity, they performed many similar functions as traditional Benedictine houses, such as memorializing donors and offering Masses, for a community that extended beyond the ranks of the nobility. Carraz explains the downfall of the Templars in the trials of 1307 and the subsequent Council of Vienne as an abrupt change, but one that was foreseeable. He dismisses the heresy charges that were leveled against them but does point out how the Templar membership had declined by the end of the thirteenth century. Estates were often inhabited by only a few brothers. While some Templars persisted even past the trial, their popularity seems to have waned as other types of popular religious movements, such as the mendicants, rose to replace them. Carraz’s work is essential reading for those interested in the Templars and the Military Orders, but his real contribution comes in the way he connects the activities of the Templars to the wider medieval context. In working from such an abundance of documentary sources, he elucidates the intersection of Templar history and nearly every aspect of medieval life, from religious devotion to royal and papal politics. In this, Carraz clearly shows how the military orders should not be thought of as a peripheral part of medieval history, but rather as the embodiment of many of its most important conceptual innovations, economics changes, and religious movements. Michael Peixoto University...

Pergamins plens de pols i pobles particulars. Nova recerca en matèria de manuscrits carolingis i d'història pública a la Catalunya del segle XXI

Summary: The central aim of the new Barcelona research project “From Carolingian Periphery to European Central Region: The Written Genesis of Catalonia” in the framework of the HERA-project “After Empire: Using and Not Using the Past in the Crisis of the Carolingian World, c.900–c.1050 (UNUP)” is to show that it is indispensable for 21st-century Europe and its integral parts to make the rich Carolingian culture publicly accessible in a modern and innovative way. Keywords: Early medieval Catalonia, Carolingian culture, manuscripts, identity building, Public History

Aachen - new Rome, new Constantinople?

This study examines a new, assumed thesis that Aachen in the 9th century - at least for a few years - became new Rome and new Constantinople. So, Aachen became a new center in Europe in the most important aspects - culture, art and theology. As the center of Carolingian culture and theology, the town became the center of the part of Europe ruled by Emperor Charles the Great. This study also discusses that new Frankish culture, Frankish art and Frankish theology were created in Aachen, and because of that it became new Rome and new Constantinople.

The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: The West Frankish Kingdom (840–987) by Geoffrey Koziol (review)

Reviewed by: The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: The West Frankish Kingdom (840–987) by Geoffrey Koziol Stephanie L. Hathaway Koziol, Geoffrey, The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: The West Frankish Kingdom (840–987) (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 19), Turnhout, Brepols, 2012; hardback; pp. 680; 10 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503535951. At a time when scholars are redefining the way historiography treats the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Koziol’s dense volume follows along the traditions of historians such as Janet Nelson and Chris Wickham in addressing some complex questions surrounding the drafting, function, and implications of diplomas in the politics of the Carolingian dynasty. Covering the time from the death of Louis the Pious to the reign of his last descendants, succeeded by Hugh Capet, the time frame of this book spans almost two hundred years during which political power play dominated the policy-making of the West Frankish kingdom. Perhaps in the same way Wickham referred to archaeologists as being able to see more clearly the sharper changes in history, Koziol equates his volume to a ‘semantic excavation’ (p. 3), examining Carolingian royal diplomas as representations of royal presence and ideologies in a political performance – a public memorial of alteration in a political regime and its alliances. The book is organized in two parts, the first consisting of seven chapters devoted to the ‘performative’ aspects of diplomas in major political events: accessions, successions, conveyances, and alliances during the Carolingian dynasty, and fencing with the issues of forgery and the tenth-century monastic reform. Koziol uses the first chapter to lay down the framework for the views he puts forward throughout the book: the ways that diplomas have been analysed by historians and how he will treat them here as ‘the medium by which past politics were remembered and redeployed for present purposes’ (p. 15). [End Page 252] That some of his conclusions might seem bold, the author is well aware, and, indeed, he challenges historians at every opening to see charters from a different perspective than has been established. Koziol engages with topics surrounding the study of charters, such as ritual, memory, lineage, and the establishment of legitimacy, as well as touching on Carolingian diplomatics. In the chapter ‘Politics and the Palace’, Koziol challenges the view that the decline in the number of diplomas after the death of Charles the Bald was the result of less writing or a loss in royal authority. More convincing is his argument that the monastic reformers and churches refashioned political diplomas and their public reception, some in order to present physical evidence of previously granted royal titles. The treatment of forgery follows smoothly from the topic of monastic reform, but might seem precarious within the author’s framework of the Germanic-ness of Carolingian culture: the expression of triuwe and its relation to the medieval idea of truth and fidelity. It remains unclear whether the author is asserting his understanding of German Carolingian scholarship or if he again wishes to forge new perspectives in the treatment of diplomas and politics. In the second part, consisting of Chapters 8–10 and an elided epilogue, the author attempts to derive an image of individuals and their personalities, applying his theory of ‘performative’ to the lives and reigns of Charles the Simple and Robert of Nuestria. Several discussions surround these figures, including some proposals for how the term ‘simple’ was used to describe Charles and the Judgement of Soissons, and how Robert’s personal intentions and principles might be seen in his attempt to justify his military actions in his only surviving diploma, the vexilla of Saint-Denis. The complex volume is drawn together agreeably with the discussion on Charles’s establishment of relations with the church of Saint-Corneille, the burial of kings at Compiègne, and Hugh Capet’s council of bishops there. Though the topics covered might seem disparate, the author does well in discussing them under the theme of his theory of royal diplomas as objects of performance in political power play. However, despite the author’s assertion that passing details are important to the understanding of these diplomas...

Carolingian Culture in the North Sea World: Rethinking the Cultural Dynamics of Personal Adornment in Viking-Age England

Boosted by a proliferation in metal-detected finds, categories of personal adornment now constitute a vital archaeological source for interpreting Viking-age cultural interaction in the North Sea region. Previous research in England has explored the potential of this metalwork in relation to the formation of ‘Anglo-Scandinavian’ identity, but without due consideration of a wider spectrum of cultural influences. This article redresses the balance by shifting attention to twenty-eight belt fittings derived from richly embellished baldrics, equestrian equipment, and waist belts manufactured on the Frankish continent during the period of Carolingian hegemony in the later eighth and ninth centuries AD. The metalwork is classified and then contextualized in order to track import mechanisms and to assess the impact of Carolingian culture on the northern peripheries of the Frankish empire. The main conclusion is that the adoption, adaptation, and strategic manipulation of Carolingian/northern Frankish identity formed an embedded component of cultural dynamics in Viking-age England, scrutiny of which sheds new light on patterns of interconnectivity linking peoples of the North Sea world.

Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno (review)

Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno. By Richard Hodges. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp. xix, 231. $49.95.) San Vincenzo al Volturno was 'one of the great monastic complexes patronized by Charlemagne. Initially founded in the eighth century by Beneventan monks from Farfa, San Vincenzo was reconceptualized and rebuilt on a grand scale by Abbot Joshua, a Frank, in the early ninth, and reached its apex shortly thereafter. Ransacked and substantially destroyed in an Arab attack in 881, the abbey was partially rebuilt in the eleventh century, and then demolished and rebuilt anew, fortified, on the opposite side of the Volturno River in the first years of the twelfth. It was also in the mid-twelfth century that Abbot John wrote the Chronicon Volturnense, recounting the history of the abbey from its beginnings to his own day. Our understanding of this important monastery and its meaning for the broader history of the early Middle Ages is greatly increased by Richard Hodges' stimulating study, the result of several decades of intensive excavation of the site. The starting point for his work has been to reassess Pirenne's famous thesis on the origins of the Middle Ages through the archaeological data. Hodges' archaeological experience is extensive, and thus he is able to place the findings from San Vincenzo within a much broader framework of cultural, social, and economic meaning that sheds light on a number of significant issues, including the question of the continuity and discontinuity of the late Roman world. The book is divided into ten chapters. In the first, Hodges discusses the previous treatments of San Vincenzo and the history of its excavation. His own work has two aims: to uncover the extent of the ninth-century monastery, and to identify vestiges of the early medieval villages in the area. Interest in the site goes back to the late nineteenth century, and earlier excavations by the Benedictine Pantoni for the purpose of rebuilding the monastery had uncovered the twelfth-century church with ninth-century fragments. The ninth-century crypt of Abbot Epyphanius was located some distance away, but Pantoni made no attempt to explain why it was set apart from the rest of the abbey, assuming that this was the original arrangement. It was only later that Hodges realized that the crypt in fact stood on the original site of the ninth-century monastery itself, and that the excavation would tell a much more complex story. After a discussion of the chronicle evidence in Chapter 2, Hodges goes on in Chapters 3 through 9 to analyze the archaeology of the site, from the Samnite and Republican Roman remains of the pre-Christian Rochetta plain through the Lombard foundation and Frankish augmentation of San Vincenzo, the Arab devastation, and the later reconstruction of the abbey. The remains of San Vincenzo are very rich, providing a wealth of material for art and architectural historians alike. Among the most valuable evidence is the uncovering of the workshops that produced this art as well as copious piles of raw and waste materials. In conjunction with the substantial remains of the crypt, abbatial palace and guest quarters, refectory, church and chapel, the site reveals a large and lively monastic community. San Vincenzo reached its height in the first half of the ninth century, when it became a focus of Carolingian policy in Benevento. It became what Hodges calls one of the ideological nodes of the Carolingian regime. In recent years the variety and complexity of monastic contributions to the definition of Carolingian culture has become increasingly apparent, and in this context San Vincenzo played a particular role in establishing the royal presence and the clear hierarchy of authority resulting from Charlemagne's conquest of Benevento. The original monastery of the eighth century, built into a late Roman villa, was modest. With the election of Abbot Joshua the abbey was reconceived, incorporating and reworking the older buildings into a monumental space with definite distinctions of monastic and secular spaces, a distinguished guests' palace reflecting the high status of San Vincenzo's patrons, and an emphasis on the aristocratic, indeed regal grandeur of the abbot. …

Carolingian Culture in the North Sea World: Rethinking the Cultural Dynamics of Personal Adornment in Viking-Age England

Carolingian Culture in the North Sea World: Rethinking the Cultural Dynamics of Personal Adornment in Viking-Age England

Engraved gems of the Carolingian empire

Medieval Europe offers a pageant of almost incredible richness: King Arthur and his round table, demons and cathedrals, Charlemagne and his paladins. The Carolingian culture of the late 8th to late 10th centuries (in what is now France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and northern Italy) offers more than its fair share of achievements. This illustrated study examines one revealing legacy of Charlemagne's heirs and his people - the Carolingian gems of rock crystal, jet and agate engraved with complex figural scenes, which have never before been studied as a group. These objects have been largely ignored in the scholarship of medieval art, partly because of the difficulty of access. Genevra Kornbluth assembles for the first time all 20 surviving gems, from small seal matrices to the 41-figure Susanna crystal in London, along with information about lost works. The unique features of each gem are made visible in over 200 detailed black-and-white photographs, often highly magnified and produced using new techniques developed to record transparent engraving. Kornbluth analyses the techniques of manufacture, style, chronology, iconography, and patronage of each gem and examines their social functions, the organisation and status of the artisans who created them, and relations between media. The gems are presented as evidence of the rich diversity of the Carolingian culture, rather than as reflections of an artistic programme dictated by the imperial courts; they are also seen to be essentially new creations, drawing on earlier visual traditions but adapting their sources to address contemporary concerns.

Book reviews

Armagh and the Royal Centres in Early Medieval Ireland: Monuments, Cosmology and the Past. By N. B. Aitchison. Cadbury Castle, Somerset: The Early Medieval Archaeology By Leslie Alcock, with S. J. Stevenson and C. R. Musson. The Medieval Landscape of Wessex. Edited by Michael Aston and Carenza Lewis. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian. By Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge. The English nobility under Edward the Confessor. By Peter A. Clarke. The Old English Lives of St Margaret. By Mary Clayton and Hugh Magennis. The Martyrs of Cordoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion. By Jessica A. Coope. Scotland in Dark Age Europe. Edited by Barbara E. Crawford. The politics of dreaming in the Carolingian Empire. By Paul Edward Dutton. The Early Medieval Bible. Edited by Richard Gameson. The Viking‐Age Gold and Silver of Scotland AD 850–1100. By James Graham‐Campbell. Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature, 800–1300. By D. H. Green. Sidonius Apollinarus and the Fall of Rome, AD 407–485. By Jill Harries. Karl Martell in seiner Zeit. Beihefte der Francia, Band 37. Edited by J. Jarnut, U. Nonn and M. Richter. Manor, Vill and Hundred: The Development of Rural Institutions in Early Medieval Hampshire. By Eric Klingelhofer. Wisdom, Authority and Grammar in the Seventh century. Decoding Virgi‐lius Maro Grammaticus. By Vivien Law. Medieval Boat and Ship Timbers from Dublin. Medieval Dublin Excavations 1962–81. Series B, Volume 3. By Sean MGrail. Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation. Edited by Rosamond MKitterick. Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France. By Megan MLaughlin. Early Irish Contract Law. By Neil MLeod. Theodoric in Italy. By John Moorhead. Ausgewählte Probleme europäischer Landnahmen des Früh‐und Hochmit‐telalters. Methodische Grundlagendiskussion im Grenzbereich zwischen Archäologie und Geschichte. The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College, Dublin, 6–9 September 1992. Edited by Felicity O'Mahony. The Poetic Art of Aldhelm. By Andy Orchard. Politik und Heiligenverehrung im Hochmittelalter. Edited by Jürgen Peter‐sohn Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianisation of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods. By P. L. Reynolds. The Formation of the Medieval West: Studies in the Oral Culture of the Barbarians. By Michael Richter. Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict. Medieval Iberian Peninsula Texts and Studies 10. By Norman Roth. The Reign of Cnut, King of England, Denmark and Norway. Edited by Alexander R. Rumble. The Earliest Irish and English Bookarts: Visual and Poetic forms before A. D. 1000. By Robert D. Stevick. Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul. By Raymond Van Dam.

Reviews and Short Notices: Medieval

The Early Germans. By Malcolm Todd. The Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350–1100. By N. J. Higham. Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of monotheism in Late Antiquity. By Garth Fowden. The Bible in the Latin West. By Margaret T. Gibson. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751. By Ian Wood. Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation. Edited by Rosamond McKitterick. History and the Historians of Medieval Spain. By Peter Linehan. English Episcopal Acta VIII: Winchester 1070–1204. Edited by M. J. Franklin. Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community. Essays Presented to G. W. S. Barrow. Edited by Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer. The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus. Volume I: A–K (excluding Acre and Jerusalem).By Denys Pringle. Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth‐century Syria. Edited by Maya Shatzmiller. Medieval Knighthood IV: Papers from the Fifth Strawberry Hill Conference, 1990. Edited by Christopher Harper‐Bill and Ruth Harvey. Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock. By Dyan Elliott. Tales of the Marriage Bed from Medieval France (1300–1500). By R. C. Famiglietti. The Register of John Kirkby, Bishop of Carlisle, 1332–1352, and the Register of John Ross, Bishop of Carlisle, 1325–1332, Volume 1. Edited by R. L. Storey. Faith and Fire: Popular and Unpopular Religion, 1350–1600. By Margaret Aston. Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy: British Academy Lectures. Selected and Introduced by George Holmes. A Moral Art: Grammar, Society and Culture in Trecento Florence. By Paul Gehl. Écrits politiques de Jean Juvénal des Ursins, Volume III: La Vie et l'œuvre. Tables.By P. S. Lewis. Sir Rhys ap Thomas and his Family: A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics. By Ralph A. Griffiths.

Carolingian culture: emulation and innovation (review)

208 Reviews Christ. It should stimulate areconsiderationof stereotyped readings of other images and in other periods. Ann Moffatt Department of Art History Australian National University McKitterick, Rosamond, ed., Carolingian culture: emulation and innovation, Cambridge, Cambridge University press, 1994; paper; pp. xvii, 334; 21 plates; R.R.P. AUS$49.95. The volume of work on Carolingian topics emanating from Cambridge continues to sweU and this book of studies by different bands wUl strengthen its reputation. Some of the chapters constitute bulletins on work in progress or summaries of questions from major scholars. Janet Nelson provides an intriguing discussion of kingship and emphe. John Marenbon offers an upbeat assessment of Carolingian thought, suggesting that it was creative in ways which were to prove influential. Rosamond McKitterick illuminatingly examines script and book production, while George Henderson writes on art. Other chapters tackle subjects which may be thought to be more marginal but which turn out to have wide interest. Grammar is dealt with by Vivien Law, German vernacular literature is assessed by Cyril Edwards, and music is discussed by Susan Rankin in an outstanding and penetrating essay. Elsewhere, Giles Brown contributes a somewhat dense introduction to the Carolingian Renaissance, Mary Garrison looks at the emergence of Latin literature, in particular poetry, at the court of Charlemagne, Matthew Innes and the editor consider the writing of history, and the editor contributes a short chapter on the legacy of the Carolingians. None of these essays is less than instructive and helpful, and some are brilliant Occasionally one would like to know more. To what extent are the arguments provided for Einhard's Life of Charlemagne having been written within a few years of the death of its subject (p. 204 ff.) weakened by that author's comment that Italy did not suffer grave damage from the Moors, nor Gaul and Germany from the Northmen, in Charlemagne's days ('... diebus suis ... ' [cap. 17])? The phrase suggests the perspective of someone looking back from a time when these threats to security had become much more pronounced. Reviews 209 Seven of the ten contributors are from Cambridge and many of the pieces have the feeling of the solid grounding in manuscripts which characterizes a good deal of work in tbefieldcoming out of that Univeristy. While Gregory the Great is mistakenly credited with having been concerned about lips singing the praises of love instead of Jove (p. 3), slips in the editing of what must have been a difficulttextare very few. The layout of the pages is as pleasing as that of a good Carolingian manuscript, and the illustrations are reproduced with exemplary clarity. The editor and the press are to be congratulated on the production of a book which is a delight to handle and use. John Moorhead Department of History University of Queensland Miller, Maureen C, The formation of a medieval church: ecclesiastical change in Verona, 950-1150, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1993; cloth; pp. xvui, 216; 6 illustrations; R.R.P. US$38.50. The period between the mid tenth century and the mid twelfth century was the most important era of change in the medieval European Church. It was during this time, and especially from the mid-eleventh century, that the Church developed into what w e think of as its typically 'medieval' form, with a hierarchical organization reaching its apex in the Pope, a well trained and organized clergy dedicated to poverty, chastity, and the care of souls, and a growing number of spiritually dynamic religious orders. Above all, the Church was characterized by an aggressive assertion of its independence from the control of secular society and its rulers. The process by which this 'medieval' Church developed is largely attributed to the 'Gregorian Reform' of the eleventh century, epitomized by Pope Gregory VII. From Miller's study of Verona, however, a rather different picture emerges. By looking in detaU at the fortunes of the diocese of Verona during this critical period in the history of the Church, she is able to show that the reality is more complex and capable of a different interpretation. Verona was chosen for her study, originally for a doctorate at Harvard university, because there remains a...

Province and empire: Brittany and the Carolingians

This book offers ideas about the processes of political and cultural change in the early Middle Ages. The main focus is on relations between the centre and periphery of the Carolingian empire, in particular on the development of Brittany as a territorial principality in the ninth and tenth centuries. A major theme is the interaction of Carolingian imperial policies, Frankish aristocratic feuding, and local Breton communities. Other issues discussed include economy and society in Brittany and Neustria, the impact of Carolingian imperialism on local Breton communities, changes in the political, ecclesiastical and social structures arising from Carolingian overlordship of Brittany, the interaction of Celtic and Carolingian culture, and the construction of an early medieval ethnic identity. The book shows how regional autonomy and self-regulating villages were as integral to the Carolingian world as court politics, cultural imperialism and frontier strife, and it argues that, in order to understand both the establishment and the collapse of the Carolingian empire, politics at the periphery demand as much attention as politics at the centre.