Regensburg,Wandalgarius and the novi denarii: Charlemagne's monetary reform revisited

Until now, Philip Grierson's tentative dating of Charlemagne's monetary reform to 793/4 has been generally accepted. His dating was based not only on numismatic evidence but also on his attempt to set this event in the context of Charlemagne's activities from 792 to 794. This traditional date of the reform does not, however, take into account evidence provided by Codex Sangallensis 731, in which the scribe Wandalgarius drew the image of a post‐reform coin around mid‐October 793. Based on this evidence as well as the historical contextualization of Charlemagne's stay in Regensburg in 791–3, this paper attributes the introduction of the novi denarii to the period between the autumn of 792 and the early autumn of 793, when his court was located in Regensburg.     

‘Those same cursed Saracens’: Charlemagne's campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula as religious warfare

While it is well known that many of Charlemagne's wars had a strong religious element, Frankish campaigns against the Muslims of Spain in his reign have generally been understood as secular exercises in power politics. This article presents evidence contemporary to Charlemagne's reign to argue against this, using a diverse range of sources to conclude that many observers of the Frankish invasions of the Iberian Peninsula understood them as religious wars aimed both at the defending of Christian communities in Francia and protecting and expanding the worship of Christianity in Spain. Further, although the prosecution of these wars was politically opportunistic, the sources suggest that Charlemagne and his court encouraged interpretations of these campaigns in religious terms and that they might be considered examples of religious war.     

The Capitulare de Villis,the Brevium exempla,and the Carolingian court at Aachen

For all the scholarship done on the Capitulare de villis and the Brevium exempla, much about them remains unclear, and no new interpretations have been offered in the last few decades. This article reads the documents without some of the assumptions prevalent in previous scholarly interpretations, and alongside both the written and material record, especially the archaeological evidence from Charlemagne's properties at Aachen and throughout his realm. It argues that the Capitulare de villis and the Brevium exempla were most likely issued shortly after 794, as a result of the logistical issues introduced when Charlemagne's court became resident at Aachen.     

Truth,plausibility, and the virtues of narrative at the millennium

While it is widely understood that medieval historiographers employed the techniques of rhetorical invention in their work, less attention has been paid to the way in which the standard of plausibility, upon which rhetorical invention was premised, could be reconciled with the historian's traditional obligation to tell the truth. This paper examines the ways in which the rhetorical doctrine of narratio probabilis was understood and put into practice by three authors active around the turn of the millennium: Richer of Saint-Rémi, Dudo of Saint-Quentin, and Adalbero of Laon. All three had been trained in the schools of northern Francia in the late tenth century and all reveal a sophisticated understanding of the doctrines of Ciceronian rhetoric, according to which plausible inventions were not seen to be incompatible with historical truth.     

Cultural contacts and ethnic origins in Viking Age Wales and northern Britain: the case of Albanus,Britain's first inhabitant and Scottish ancestor

Albanus, an eponymous ancestor for the kingdom of Alba, provides an example of the extent to which the creation of an ethnic identity was accompanied by new ideas about origins, which replaced previous accounts. Through an analysis of the Historia Brittonum’s textual tradition and Welsh knowledge of early Roman history and medieval ethnic groups, this article establishes that Albanus was added to the Historia Brittonum in the late ninth or early tenth century as an ancestral figure for the new kingdom of Alba in northern Britain. This was potentially a result of shared political situations in Gwynedd, Alba (formerly Pictland) and Strathclyde in relation to Scandinavian power at this time, which encouraged contacts and the spread of Alba-based ideology to Gwynedd. The later development of this idea and its significance in Alba itself, Geoffrey of Monmouth's account and English claims to supremacy over Scotland are also traced.     

The Erasure of the Middle Ages from Anthropology's Intellectual Genealogy

This essay explores the curious absence of Middle Ages from the history of anthropological thought. An investigation of disciplinary histories reveals while anthropology's intellectual origins are often traced to early modernity or classical antiquity, the existence of authentic anthropological inquiry in medieval Europe has been either disregarded or explicitly denied. This historical lacuna is the product of an unexamined temporal logic that presupposes an epistemological rupture between the medieval and modern worlds. This essay challenges several historical myths that have underwritten the erasure of the discipline's medieval legacies, and then outlines the necessity of reintegrating the Middle Ages in anthropology's intellectual genealogy not only for enriching our understanding of pre-professional anthropology, but also for constructing a more holistic and inclusive understanding of the anthropological project.     

Did Women Have a Transformation of the Roman World?

Despite intense and interdisciplinary interest in the transition from antiquity to the middle ages, work on women and gender generally remains marginal to the dominant paradigms for understanding political and social change in the period from c. 300 to c. 800 ce . This article critiques these interpretations from a gendered perspective and also reviews recent work on women and gender in late antiquity, Byzantium and the early medieval Europe. By outlining similarities and contrasts between women's lives in early medieval western and Byzantine cultures, it emphasises the diversity of women's experience. Suggestions about how to envisage a fully gendered history of this period conclude with a call for radically new approaches to the study of the transformation of the Roman world.     

Reims,Bibliothèque Carnegie, 806: a little‐known manuscript of Benedict of Aniane's Concordia regularum

Benedict of Aniane is usually portrayed as the major instigator of a series of monastic reforms undertaken by Louis the Pious in the early years of his reign, which attempted to impose the Rule of Benedict of Nursia as the sole monastic standard across Francia. Based on information provided by Ardo, Benedict of Aniane's biographer, the Concordia regularum has been seen as Benedict's main instrument in his attempt to convince or compel others to accept the Rule as a superior norm. The Concordia itself is a sort of commentary on the Rule, where almost the whole of St Benedict's Rule is explained by texts drawn from other monastic rules. However, a number of fragments from a copy of the Concordia, apparently written a decade or more before the accession of Louis, contests Ardo's chronology, and challenges our traditional understanding of both Benedict of Aniane's role in monastic reform and of the Aachen reform councils. An edition of these fragments is included in an Appendix.     

‘Because their patron never dies’: ecclesiastical freedmen,socio-religious interaction,and group formation under the aegis of ‘church property’ in the early medieval west (sixth to eleventh centuries)

In the early medieval west, patronate, as adapted from Roman law, was a fundamental category in determining the legal status of freedmen. In many cases it entailed a basic set of obligations. In an increasing number of situations, however, the patron became an ecclesiastical institution, since slaves and freed persons were often given to churches and monasteries. As ecclesiastical institutions regarded their patronal rights over freed persons as part of inalienable church property, the patronal relationship became permanent and inheritable. In Eastern Francia (the Rhineland and beyond) this transformed ecclesiastical freedmen into religiously defined social groups with potentially distinct aims, religious tasks, and organizational structures, and a shared notion of freedom. From the Carolingian period onward, it even became attractive to enter voluntarily into this status. It is argued here that with its underlying network of socio-religious relations, patronate over ecclesiastical freedmen and censuales can be better understood when considered as an element of a ‘temple society’.     

A marriage,a battle,an honour: the career of Boniface of the Hucpoldings during Rudolf II's Italian reign, 924–26

This article investigates the events of Rudolf II's military campaign in Italy (922) and considers the political ramification of this, both immediately thereafter and subsequently during the rule of Rudolf. Particular attention is paid to the career of Boniface of the Hucpoldings: an Italian aristocrat who attained prominence thanks to his close relationship with Rudolf. The Hucpoldings belonged to the aristocratic elite of the Carolingian empire, came to Italy under Lothar I (c.847) and tried to settle there. Until now, scholars have underestimated their role in the wider context of the early medieval Italian kingdom. This study will stress how Boniface's career was a turning point in the lineage's development, and how his political achievements were essential for his kinship's further hegemony.     

Rescuing the Future: César Vallejo and Postcolonial Thought

This article explores some of the ways in which the Heptaméron's thirteenth nouvelle plays upon epistolary expectations established by medieval letter-writing traditions, and it suggests how sixteenth-century epistolary exchange had shifted from its medieval antecedents, particularly in regard to the materiality of letters. It also considers the implications of Marguerite's epistolary play for the letter-writing landscape and for the subject at the very heart of the Heptaméron: love, and the fictions we necessarily engage in writing about it.     

Placing the Pillar of Eliseg: Movement,Visibility and Memory in the Early Medieval Landscape

THE LANDSCAPE CONTEXT of the early 9th-century monument known as the Pillar of Eliseg is interrogated here for the first time with GIS-based analysis and innovative spatial methodologies. Our interpretation aims to move beyond regarding the Pillar as a prominent example of early medieval monument reuse and a probable early medieval assembly site. We argue that the location and topographical context of the cross and mound facilitated the monument’s significance as an early medieval locus of power, faith and commemoration in a contested frontier zone. The specific choice of location is shown to relate to patterns of movement and visibility that may have facilitated and enhanced the ceremonial and commemorative roles of the monument. By shedding new light on the interpretation of the Pillar of Eliseg as a node of social and religious aggregation and ideological power, our study has theoretical and methodological implications for studying the landscape contexts of early medieval stone monuments.     

Saxon military revolution, 912–973?: myth and reality

For more than a generation Karl Leyser's influential thesis, which credited Henry I with undertaking a military revolution which made possible the Saxon dynasty's rule of Francia orientalis, has dominated the scholarly literature. According to Leyser, Henry radically reformed the Saxon military by building a large force of heavily armed mounted fighting men. These men provided the means necessary to assure Saxon domination. It is argued here, by contrast, that this Saxon military revolution is a myth and that the continental Saxons, as contrasted to those in England, saw the gradual development of a heavily armed mounted fighting force following their conquest by Charlemagne in 805. The real Saxon military revolution was Henry's creation of the agrarii milites and the building of frontier fortifications.     

Crusading and crusade memory in Caesarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus miraculorum

This article is a preliminary investigation into the way the Cistercians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries conceptualised and contextualised the history of the crusading movement, with a specific focus on the way in which they integrated their involvement in crusading into the Order's sense of institutional memory and corporate identity. The article presents a study of Caesarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus miraculorum, a collection of exempla that was composed for the edification of Cistercian novices in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. Although the text is well known to medievalists (and particularly to scholars of medieval Cisterciana), it has yet to be subjected to a close reading by historians of the crusades. By examining the way in which Caesarius used and described the crusades in the Dialogus, the article demonstrates the potential of using non-narrative texts to explore medieval understandings of the crusading past and, more generally, illustrates further the importance of warfare in the shaping of medieval monastic culture.     

Indirect Evidence of Falconry in Medieval Poland as Inferred from Published Zooarchaeological Studies

Although written sources indicate that falconry or hawking was very popular already in early medieval Poland, there is no hard zooarchaeological evidence that would support it. So far, only two studies based on animal remains suggested hawking in medieval Poland. The purpose of this study was to examine all published zooarchaeological reports from all archaeological sites in Poland and check for possible clues of hawking. Altogether, 281 remains of 12 species of diurnal birds of prey were recorded from 38 sites (49 time‐site units) in Poland beginning from the Middle Ages onward. The most frequently found was the goshawk Accipiter gentilis followed by the white‐tailed eagle Haliaeetus albicilla and the sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus. Clues of possible hawking include high status of sites, occurrence of species used in falconry outside their natural ranges, preponderance of females, the presence of sub‐adult specimens and others. It is suggested that surface damage observed on prey bones done by the hawks' beaks and claws may be an extra evidence of hawking. The present study strongly supports the notion that hawking was a very popular activity in medieval Poland. In the future, medieval bone assemblages should always be checked for clues of hawking. The present study may also be used as a source of raw data for other analyses because it includes detailed information on birds of prey from all zooarchaeological reports published so far in Poland. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Texts,topoi and the self: a reading of Alfredian spirituality*

Challenging the allegation that Alfred's spirituality as Asser presents it is no more than a string of textual fictions, this article outlines a context for understanding Alfred's spirituality as a functional process of living texts, or of ‘textualizing’ the self. The discussion first draws support for this view from the history of early medieval spirituality and then demonstrates the theme's relevance both to Asser's representation of Alfred and to the king's own writings. Attention is given especially to the congruence between Alfred's depiction in the Life and Gregory the Great's teachings on the ideal rector as propounded in the Pastoral Care, a text carefully read and famously translated by Alfred himself. The comparison suggests that the main spiritual models for Alfred's kingly piety may be understood to reside in, and to involve assimilation of, this work of Gregory, making it possible to conceptualize the king's self‐presentation in terms of a conscious project to ‘live’ Gregory's text by bringing the ideals of the Gregorian rector to life in his own person. Such an argument helps to explain Alfred's interest in Gregory, to account for his concern to translate the Pastoral Care, and to legitimize the predominant images associated with the king's spirituality as indicative of a kind of functional piety grounded in the reading of texts, rather than simply reflected, perhaps falsely, in Asser’s Life.     

Material memory: rebuilding the basilica of S. Cecilia in Trastevere,Rome

Examining Pope Paschal I's early ninth‐century architectural project of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, brings to light the diversity of functions of tituli in early medieval Rome. Not only was the church a papal basilica and site of the stational liturgy of Rome, but it was also a shrine to the saint Cecilia, a popular Roman martyr. The architectural arrangement makes clear that the papal project incorporated both the papal cult and the popular cult of the saint by manipulating the archaeology of the site and translating corporeal relics to the urban church.