Hi everyone!
Week 3 is all about the Carolingians and the Carolingian Empire! Some historians devote all of their time and energy to studying this period and it is, as we shall learn this week, incredibly important in the shaping of the later Middle Ages in Europe.
Our readings this week consist of a long extract from a secondary source (Medieval Civilization) by Kay Slocum and the full text of a primary source, The Life of Charlemagne, by a fellow called Einhard.
 |
| Charlemagne as he appeared in the imagination of the 16th-Century German Painter - Albrecht Durer |
 |
| An image of Einhard from a later medieval manuscript |
Einhard is a classic example of the opportunities provided by monasteries for lower status individuals to gain an education and rise in worldly status. Einhard (c.775 - 840) was of a lower status, however, his parents sent him to be educated at a great monastery named Fulda. He became an excellent scholar and part of Charlemagne's administrative team at his court. Later in life Einhard became the personal secretary of Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious.
When reading Einhard's Life of Charlemagne try to ask yourself the 5 'Ws' of document analysis that we discussed in our last tutorial:
Who was Einhard?
When did he write the Life?
What is it?
Where did he write it?
Why did he write it? (Why do you think he wrote it and why does he say he wrote it?)
Some other questions to ask could be:
What were Einhard's literary influences?
Can we rely on his account?
What portrait of Charlemagne does he create? What values and vision of kingship does he celebrate?
Our other source today, the extract from Kay Slocum's Medieval Civilization, gives us a broad, sweeping history of the Carolingian period and provides us with a lot of context to help us understand Einhard's Life.
Some broad questions to ask when reading this text could be:
How did Charlemagne manage to conquer and control such vast territory?
How would you characterize the relationship between the Church (especially the papacy) and Charlemagne (and his successors) during this period?
What do scholars mean when they refer to the 'Carolingian Renaissance'? What ideals lay behind the renaissance and in what ways did it impact Carolingian culture?
Why is the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 as Holy Roman Empire so important? Does it create a new vision of kingship?
As always your comments can be based on these, or the tutorial discussion questions in our reader, however they do not have to. All of your thoughts, questions, and reflections are welcome!
.........
I know that many of you (including myself!) have been struggling with the geography of Europe in the early medieval period. I've uploaded a map below that I think manages to find a good balance between simplicity and detail. I hope it will help us all get these place names straight!
 |
| Map of the Carolingian Empire |
......
Just for fun!
Here is a link to another text that Einhard wrote. It's about the translation of the bones of the saints Marcellinus and Peter from their original resting place in Italy across the Alps to the Carolingian Empire. Translation is a fancy word used to describe the movement of relics (bits of saints preserved and venerated as holy objects in the Church). It is a wonderful adventure story full of grave-robbing, hiding from the authorities, and sneaking around! It gives us wonderful insight into early medieval religious culture. Remember from last week the section in our readings on the importance of relics and saints to early medieval people? This story gives us a brilliant snapshot of that part of early medieval culture!
http://www.archive.org/stream/MN5140ucmf_5/MN5140ucmf_5_djvu.txt
And also just for fun.......here is a link to a 12th century poem called The Song of Roland. It celebrates a great battle fought by the forces of Charlemagne during one of his military campaigns. What ideals and values are celebrated in the poem? Do you think they reflect Carolingian culture or 12th century culture?
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/basis/roland-ohag.asp
.....
Happy reading everyone!
Diana
And also just for fun.......here is a link to a 12th century poem called The Song of Roland. It celebrates a great battle fought by the forces of Charlemagne during one of his military campaigns. What ideals and values are celebrated in the poem? Do you think they reflect Carolingian culture or 12th century culture?
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/basis/roland-ohag.asp
.....
Happy reading everyone!
Diana
Hi Everyone.
ReplyDeleteJust read the readings and it is so interesting to see how glorified Charlemagne was regarding his people. Although to an extent Einhard writing's cannot be reliable, it seems as if Charlemagne's rule really benefited the people. There seemed to be ,much peace within his reign as opposed to the rivalry uprisings that followed after his death which divided territories. Charlemagne's coronation was symbolic of the unification of religion and politics. Charlemagne found religion very important and used it in his way of ruling.
I found it fascinating to learn about music and how they used it in their worship. And the beautiful literature which was covered with gold and gems.
These were just some things that I found of interest and am looking forward to tomorrows lecture and tute.
Emily
Its interesting to see that Charlemagne was able to organise Europe in such a manner. I suppose I had not dedicated much thought towards it, but I had always wondered how it is the different kingdoms of Europe originated. I simply assumed that tribes rose to conquer the land they inhabited and it developed from there. I had no idea that Charlemagne had organised an empire, and at that, one of such efficiency and success. Whilst his efforts alone obviously werent enough (as his empire defracted with his passing), his concepts in womens rights,
ReplyDeletemulticulturism, laws and christianity seem profoundly succesful. He does seem to be somewhat glorified, suspicously, to a point where I would doubt he was quite so noble as we are led to believe. Regardless, his wartime efforts and successed are incredible. I look forward to learning more on the Viking invasions, and the rise of the seperate kingdoms, specifacally the French and English, who I know to be rivals during medievel Europe.
Although it is highly disputed on the reliability of Einhard's writing on Charlemagne, I do find it truly shows how the majority of those under Charlemagne's reign found him to be a glorified man. Einhard captures the essence of Charlemagne that made him this man we hear of today, whether the accounts remain wholly true is questionable, yes, but to understand how Charlemagne was seen through his people's eyes remains intriguing to me.
ReplyDeleteCharlemagne's rule did in fact help the people to an extent with the momentary peace he created and I believe at the time was the one thing seen by those under his reign, thus the representation of him in Einhard's work
I'd like to know the thoughts of others on, perhaps, reasoning behind the differences in Einhard's writing to that of what we know today
Stacey-Lea
First of all I'd like to say I really enjoyed the readings this week they were really interesting and insightful.
ReplyDeleteCharlemagne to me seemed to be somewhat of a 'complete King', in the way he approached his ruling of the Frankish empire. He had all the qualities such as being a fearless military leader, unselfish, devout and loyal towards his faith and his people. I gathered through the readings that even though Charlemagne wasn't really literate he still seemed to be quite intelligent in the way he conducted himself militarily, politically, socially and how he organised the empire. For example he obviously has looked at how and why the Roman's were so successful in maintaining such a vast empire. This is shown in how the Romans and subsequently the Franks allowed their conquered people to continue and practice their daily way of life rather than adopt the new regime's culture, religion and language. He also shows his great leadership and initiative in how he set's up the administrative positions such as the 'missi's' to help run the empire rather than trying to do it all by force which would have created a divide between him and his people. These decisions I believe were really intuitive moves and proved to be very successful during his reign.
We further see how complete a King Charlemagne was through the failures of the later Carolingian Kings. These failures included the splitting up of the empire which ultimately left it susceptible to invasions which inevitably happened from the north and south.
Finally even if Einhard did bolster Charlemagne's reign up, I still believe he was truly one of the great Kings of the middle ages if not ever!
Oliver S
It is amazing to read how glorified Charlemagne was by his people and Einhard, which makes his account on Charlemagne questionable, and I think somewhat unreliable. Though he achieved much throughout his reign and was well respected by his people, we cannot forget that Charlemagne was an aggressive leader and achieved what he desired by any means. His ruthless ambition is spoken about in Slocum’s account of ‘The Early Middle Ages’ where he says Charlemagne was only able to convert the Saxons to Christianity through brutal coercion and slaughtered thousands of them in one day. It is also implied that he was a dictator in controlling his people and his lands, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I find it interesting that these aspects of rulers in the medieval past are found even in today’s rulers.
ReplyDeleteCharlemagne did a lot of good for his people I think and the peace he created, even though it was only for a while, is what influenced the writing of people like Einhard.
Asira
The fact that Einhard needs to preface his Life of Charlemagne by stating “it was better to risk the opinions of the world, and put my little talents for composition to the test, than to slight the memory of so great a man for the sake of sparing myself” suggests total devotion to Charlemagne, as he is so willing to risk his own reputation in order to preserve that of his “foster-father”, thus meaning a biased recount is inevitable. It also suggests that Einhard has very little faith in his own writing abilities, which, through openly admitting to this insecurity, means that anyone who reads the text will automatically approach it with caution and an exceptionally judgmental eye. It does make me question how accurate these representations are, but it also leads me to ask which specific historical documents are being referenced when modern historians attempt to refute his accounts or claim they’re “merely a figment of unrealistic hero worship”, since this document seems to be the main source for Charlemagne’s history. I understand that there may have been specific events omitted from the biography that may have been documented elsewhere that may serve to discredit his works to an extent.
ReplyDelete- Lara M
The thing that popped out at me from this week's readings was the fact that Charlemagne's nephew was denied his rights to what land he would have inherited. I wonder if he or his descendants ever wanted or attempted to seize back any of the land - if this was said in the readings I apologise as I didn't actually get all the way through them. This also lends me to agree with other comments which mention Charlemagne being quite a forceful leader - he pretty much stole half his kingdom to start with, so how could he have ended up being such the wonderful person that Einhard painted him, without any of that original force of will?
ReplyDeleteCharlemagne was clever in the way he tactfully aligned himself with the church, thus gaining the papacy's protection and influence. He transformed himself into a divine leader because of this allegiance with god. We have seen instances of this repeatedly in history, religion and power seem to go hand in hand. I think Einhard's bias report causes us, a students of history, to question what we presume to be 'primary sources'. Although the account was written by a first hand scholar who was clearly very well educated Einhard lets his feelings get the better of him. He portrays Charlemagne as a type of demi-god, "and here let me express my admiration of his great qualities and his extraordinary constancy alike in good and evil fortune'. The Life of Charlemagne mirrors the 'classical' Roman text 'Lives of the Caesars' and Charlemagne's rule was similar in many ways to that of a Christian Caesar. Did this help to make his ruthless decisions more acceptable in the eyes of his people?
ReplyDeleteHi folks,
ReplyDeleteDiana here - Ryan was unable to post this week so he sent his post to me instead. Here it is:
'I found the readings for the most part interesting. Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, I found it somewhat biased as it was written from Einhard’s perspective, but still shows a decent picture of the personality of Charlemagne. I found it shows Charlemagne as a determined, driven, devoted and humble man.
The map I found useful in locating several of the wars mentioned in in Einhard's Life of Charlemagne. And helped give a greater understanding of Charlemagne’s campaigns.'
What Charlemagne accomplished was truly remarkable. The way he shaped medieval society and culture illustrates the power of strategic thinking. It only takes one man to make a difference and I think it’s safe to say Charlemagne demonstrated that. Although Einhard’s text lacks legitimacy in terms of perception it is a great source of primary evidence that illustrates the environment in which surrounded Einhard and in turn the era of Charlemagne.
ReplyDeleteI found Einhard’s writing most amusing when describing Pepin, which broke out of the glorified terminology depicting Charlemagne and replacing it with words such as ‘seduced’, ‘vain promises’ and ‘formidable conspiracy’. The dramatic shift of language highlighted how bias Einhard actually was.
Emily P