Metamorphoses of the early medieval signum of a ruler in the Carolingian world

This article uses the approach of diplomatic semiotics to explore early medieval signs of authority in charters and on coins, especially the monogram and the sign of the cross used as an individual ‘signature’. Coins and charters used these signs communicating royal or imperial authority differently, addressing diverse regional and social audiences. From the fifth through the ninth centuries, the early medieval signum of a ruler gradually transformed from the individualizing sign of a particular monarch, designed to differentiate him symbolically from other rulers, to the generalizing sign of the king by the grace of God, which as a visual attribute of authority could be shared by several rulers. This transformation signified the inauguration of a new ‘medieval’ tradition in the communication of authority in late Carolingian times.     

Legislation and politics in late Carolingian Italy: the Ravenna constitutions

This article considers some overlooked evidence for royal legislation in the dying days of the Carolingian empire, a series of charters known as the Ravenna constitutions. These documents, which deal with the status of Italian freemen, are often analysed as sources for social history but rarely as texts in their own right. Reconstructing the context in which the charters were issued enables us to cast light on political events and royal self‐representation in early 880s Italy; and by drawing attention to the peculiarities of their form, we can use them to reflect more broadly on the nature of Carolingian capitulary legislation and the meaning of its disappearance at the end of the ninth century.     

Imperial Geography and the Medieval Peutinger Map

The Peutinger map is an extraordinary world map drawn c.1200 and long considered a copy of a Roman road map made for late antique travellers. This paper presents arguments against these assumptions and concludes that the lost original was more likely to be a Carolingian display map. Ninth‐century scribes had the expertise and resources necessary for creating an antiquarian work based on Roman itinerary lists, while Carolingian rulers had ample motivation for commissioning a map to display their Roman imperial ambitions.     

Landholding in the Loire valley and the late Carolingian economy (c.840–c.1000)

This article builds on recent work on the Carolingian economy by giving an overview of landholding patterns and associated economic activity in the Loire valley in the ninth and tenth centuries. It demonstrates that only individuals and institutions with access to patronage from the royal fisc possessed large, unified estates; the majority of land was held as small, fragmented farmsteads. Moreover, these small parcels of land changed hands on a regular basis through grants and leases, allowing investment, agricultural development, and social and material returns for their owners. The article suggests that these small-scale property transactions were the basis for growth and dynamism in the late Carolingian economy.     

Royal burial and the cult of kingship in France and England, 1060–1330

In the late-eleventh and early twelfth centuries, French and English royal burials were relatively unceremonial, low-key affairs, a contrast with the obsequies of other contemporary rulers such as the Holy Roman emperors. One reason for that may be the dominance of reforming ecclesiastics in arranging the funeral rites in England and France; another, the importance attached by the monarchs to obtaining personalised intercession from ascetic monks. By the early fourteenth century, however, the French and English sovereigns were commemorated after death in magnificent ceremonies and monuments. In the intervening centuries, those kings and their followers had shown a growing interest in the creation and promotion of royal saint-cults; in the honouring of royal remains; in public and splendid funeral ceremonies and lawish tombs; and in the creation and development of imposing burial-churches at Saint-Denis and Westminster. During this time there was an increasing emphasis upon the image and panoply of monarchy in both kingdoms which was rooted to a large extent in the personal and political rivalry of their rulers. The new splendours of royal burials can be seen as one important part of those developments.     

Royal burial and the cult of kingship in France and England, 1060–1330

In the late-eleventh and early twelfth centuries, French and English royal burials were relatively unceremonial, low-key affairs, a contrast with the obsequies of other contemporary rulers such as the Holy Roman emperors. One reason for that may be the dominance of reforming ecclesiastics in arranging the funeral rites in England and France; another, the importance attached by the monarchs to obtaining personalised intercession from ascetic monks. By the early fourteenth century, however, the French and English sovereigns were commemorated after death in magnificent ceremonies and monuments. In the intervening centuries, those kings and their followers had shown a growing interest in the creation and promotion of royal saint-cults; in the honouring of royal remains; in public and splendid funeral ceremonies and lawish tombs; and in the creation and development of imposing burial-churches at Saint-Denis and Westminster. During this time there was an increasing emphasis upon the image and panoply of monarchy in both kingdoms which was rooted to a large extent in the personal and political rivalry of their rulers. The new splendours of royal burials can be seen as one important part of those developments.     

‘Bound from Either Side’: The Limits of Power in Carolingian Marriage Disputes, 840–870

The article discusses four marriage disputes in ninth‐century Francia which involved noblemen: Count Stephen of the Auvergne, Count Boso of Italy, Baldwin of Flanders and the royal vassal Falcric. All these men were affected by Carolingian reforming measures on consanguineous marriage, divorce and raptus (abduction). The article examines how gender and social status affected the forms of power and the strategies used by different parties in the cases: archbishops and popes, kings, the women involved and the noblemen themselves. A paradoxical situation is revealed: despite the patriarchal basis of Carolingian society, the power even of elite men over women and marriage was often highly contingent. Yet such restrictions on power did not imperil the gender order: the masculinity of the men involved in these marriage disputes was not questioned.     

How Pre-modern State Rulers Used Marriage to Reduce the Risk of Losing at War: A Comparison of Eight States

Approaching warfare in pre-modern states from the perspective of risk reduction, we see that royal marriage was one strategy rulers used to reduce the probability that they would lose a war. Judicious marriage exchanges intensified and prolonged patron-client relations between rulers or between rulers and societal elites. Clientelism could affect the size and composition of their armies. The more warriors and troops one could field, the greater the chance of not losing a war (Otterbein 2004; LeBlanc 2006). Examination of eight pre-modern states suggests that their rulers used the same patterns of wife exchange even though most states developed independently. Marriage secured long-term patron-client relationships, which they used to support their military efforts. When rulers married their kin or married them to rulers outside the system (“foreigners”), they did not gain military support. Analysis of these marriage-military patterns reveals several characteristics of pre-modern states. First, marriage alliances helped rulers form networks of support that helped them win wars. Therefore, marriage—and by extension, royal women—is a key component to the study of warfare and a critical mechanism of network formation, as Blanton et al. (1996) write. Second, alliances were based on a different organizing principle from Levi-Strauss’ tribal societies, for rulers selected main wives (for themselves or their kin) based on relative rank rather than particular kinship ties. Third, marriage alliance reveals an important difference between alliance and patron-client relationships, a distinction that is often blurred in the archaeological literature.     

金文中的王称

金文王称的研究始于王国维《古诸侯称王说》,其后张政烺作《■王簋簋跋——评王国维古诸侯称王说》,对王氏理论加以修正。本文在两位前辈学者研究的基础上,全面检讨了金文中记录的殷代至战国各个时期的王称,将其归纳为“时王生称”、“时王美称”、“时王别称”、“在野王称”等四种。其中“时王别称”系由作者首次提出,该文具体考证了西周金文中的周王、成周王、豐王、畢王、幽王分别是文王、成王、西周早期某王、懿王、孝王的别称,它们都是以都城或重要驻地命名的。命名别称可能是西周诸王的一种普遍现象。     

The Peace of God,the ‘weakness’ of Robert the Pious and the struggle for the German throne, 1023–5

The author of The Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai accused Bishops Berold of Soissons and Warin of Beauvais of overstepping the boundaries of episcopal authority and usurping royal rights by promoting the Peace of God and attributed their initiative to the weakness of King Robert the Pious. This paper argues that the author was misrepresenting the situation to hide the vulnerability of the bishop of Cambrai during the succession of Conrad II. Instead, Berold and Warin's peace council was patronized by Robert the Pious and was a symptom of French royal assertiveness in the period 1023–5. The reasons for the Cambrai author's distortions are to be found in the significance of kings in the rallying of support on a local and regional level.     

From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian kings

This article represents the first comprehensive study of the commendation and conversion of Viking leaders by Carolingian rulers, from the first recorded instance under Charlemagne to the agreement with Rollo in the early tenth century. The survey underlines how widespread the practice was, and permits an assessment of its effectiveness as a defensive strategy against Scandinavian incursions. The outcome varied: some Scandinavians found themselves defending Frankish territory against Viking attack, others acted as intermediaries between Franks and Scandinavians, still others were granted Frankish benefices but never trusted, and ultimately killed. Nonetheless, the article demonstrates that in the majority of cases the practice of commendation and conversion worked to the Carolingians' advantage, neutralizing potential enemies or even turning them into useful allies.     

Economic incentives for the Frankish conquest of Saxony

Contrary to received scholarly wisdom, this article argues that the Frankish conquest of Saxony under Charlemagne in the late eighth and early ninth centuries was driven in no small part by the pursuit of material wealth. Specifically, most scholars have viewed pre‐conquest Saxony as too materially impoverished for economic incentives to have played a significant role in Frankish expansion into the lands between the Rhine and the Elbe. However, a thorough review of the written and archaeological evidence suggests that Saxony had much to offer its Carolingian conquerors in the form of plunder and tribute, land and mineral resources, revenue from royal and ecclesiastical renders and taxation, and access to and control of trade routes.     

Law and the peasant: rural society and justice in Carolingian Italy

Comparative analysis of the most important Carolingian‐period Italian placiti dealing with the defence of freedom allows us to reconstruct the approach taken by various large monasteries as they attempted to transform their landholding into coercive power over people, by converting dependent freemen into slaves. Similarly, it reveals the strenuous defence mounted by the freemen who were thus threatened, who were clearly perfectly aware that a downgrading of their legal status would be far more serious for them than an economic downgrading. It also permits an analysis of placiti as sites for the representation of public power, in which the ideological model of the king as ‘protector of the weak’ was often scuppered by the ability of many potentes to use for their own advantage either the presence of royal officials, or those very legal processes which were supposed to guarantee protection of the pauperes.     

The image of authority in Carolingian coinage: the image of a ruler and Roman imperial tradition

This article examines the influence of Roman imperial symbols of authority on Carolingian coinage. During the brief period of a specific &1squo;renewal' in Carolingian coinage in the 810s, there was an evident turn to the Roman tradition of demonstrating authority. As a result, the image of a peace-making emperor on Roman coins during the late third to early fourth century was employed on Carolingian coins for the purpose of legitimizing the new imperial authority of the Carolingians. This image, however, was not long-lived and gradually disappeared in the 820s to 830s.     

The secret of my succession: dynasty and crisis in Vandal North Africa

The system of royal succession in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa has long been regarded as idiosyncratic within the early medieval west, but its fullest implications have rarely been investigated closely. The present article examines the origins of succession by agnatic seniority under the strong rule of King Geiseric, and argues that it was one of several innovations intended to establish the emergent Hasding royal house against other aristocratic challenges. The article goes on to explore the consequences of this law in the two major dynastic crises of the Vandal kingdom: under Huneric in c.481 and under Hilderic in 530. In both cases, the standard narratives of events are challenged, and with them assumptions about the ‘constitutional’ status of Geiseric's law of succession.     

Pro tutela regni: revisiting a royal diploma from 918 on the birth of Normandy and the first ‘ducal’ laws

The Treaty of Saint‐Clair‐sur‐Epte (911) and the cession of Normandy to Rollo have long been considered as evidence of a decline in Carolingian power during the reign of Charles III the Simple. If, during the twentieth century, this view has undergone gradual revision, the role that the king could have played in the process of the Normans’ installation on the Seine remains obscure. A review of the relevant royal diplomas, in particular that of 14 March 918, suggests, however, active participation by the king in the emergence of a Norman march in Neustria: that is to say, a political and legal programme intended to reaffirm royal authority over this part of the regnum Francorum. This rereading, based on Frankish texts, on Christian ideology and on the Roman heritage, suggests a new interpretation of the settlement of Scandinavians in Normandy, the emergence of a Norman principality, and the genesis of the famous ‘laws of Rollo’.     

Uncrowned kings: rituals and ritual objects in eighteenth–nineteenth century Portuguese royal acclamation ceremonies

ABSTRACT

This article examines the royal acclamation ceremonies of the Portuguese crown in order to grasp the responsiveness of the institution of the monarchy and regime to the challenges of modernity throughout the delicate watershed period of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Portuguese Catholic and absolutist monarchy of the ancien régime had a strict protocol and a set of insignia of power that acted together at the moment of the acclamation and legitimation of each new king. The purpose of this research is to assess the adaptation and reinvention of these insignia and rituals according to the revolutionary demands of social change and secularization brought about by the turbulent period of the beginning of the nineteenth century: the French military invasions (1807–11); the departure of the royal family, court and administration to Brazil (1807); the liberal constitutional revolution (1820); and the civil war pitting liberals against absolutists (1832–34). The new constitutional monarchy that came out of this revolutionary flow faced many challenges of legitimacy, including the test of its capacity to create a modern royal imaginary updated to the cultural mindset of national and secular societies, and capable of bonding rulers with their people. The authors believe that the study of the acclamation ceremonies in the Portuguese constitutional monarchy can give us an accurate perspective on the quality of the symbolic image of the crown, therefore assessing the political efficiency of rituals as one of the structural aspects for institutional legitimization.     

Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age: the predestination controversy (840s–60s)

This paper reconsiders the impact of public opinion on religious controversies in the Carolingian age. Doctrinal debate was by no means limited to the elite circles connected with royal and episcopal power. A wider constituency was involved, as is shown by the well‐known controversy on double predestination (840s–60s). During this debate, monks, rural priests and lower clerics read, disputed and circulated treatises and booklets, and questioned the authority of their superiors. The reaction of the clerical elite to the extension of the sphere of debate was ambivalent. A wider discussion was discouraged by a discourse of self‐restraint that emphasized the virtue of simplicitas, but also by disciplinary means. Yet dissent was not entirely stifled, so leading churchmen had to convince their subordinates while not officially acknowledging the latter as their equal discussion partners. This required complex strategies of communication, which only become visible by investigating all aspects of such doctrinal debates.     

Charlemagne's involvement in central and southern Italy: power and the limits of authority

This article is an overview of political developments in southern Italy during Charlemagne's reign. Traditionally the historiography has approached this topic from a Carolingian or papal perspective. Without denying the reality of both papal and Carolingian influence, the article argues that neither of these institutions exercised predominant influence in southern Italy in this period, much as they may have wished to. Rather the pattern of political (and to an extent ideological) development in the area was determined by a series of compromises dictated by self-interest and the limits of power. This article therefore deals in turn with the evidence concerning the main protagonists in the south: the abbey of Farfa, the dukes of Spoleto, the monasteries of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno and the princes of Benevento. The article goes on to argue that the activities of these institutions are driven by self-interest. Finally the paper concludes that in the 790s there is a change in the way Carolingian government worked, at least in Spoleto.     

The long‐haired kings of the Franks: ‘like so many Samsons?’1

As the paradigm of Germanic sacral kingship has lost its appeal, historians have begun to rethink the concept of Merovingian kingship. Most of the arguments once used in support of its alleged Germanic and pagan character have now been refuted. However, the meaning of their long hair has thus far proven difficult to explain. This article will argue that the Merovingian hairstyle took up Christian meaning shortly after their conversion, presenting them in the image of the biblical Samson. Consequently, their use of biblical analogies to legitimize royal power further challenges the once‐held dichotomy between Merovingian and Carolingian kingship.