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.     

Frankish military duty and the fate of Roman taxation

Frankish kings exacted unpaid military service from their subjects in both Merovingian and Carolingian times. The basis for this right has long been uncertain. A study of the term ‘manse’ as a Carolingian measure of assets brings to light the ostensibly hidden property on whose basis Franks went to war. This military duty reached back to the origins of the Frankish kingdom, when a large share of Roman taxes was awarded in individual allotments to soldiers obligated to serve, otherwise unpaid, when summoned, and heavily fined if they did not. Both demesne and tributary manses – contributory units – were the main part of state resources applied to military costs. They cannot be simply envisaged as components of an agricultural scheme (grand domaine). A tax‐like military obligation was one among several institutions actively surviving from the fifth century to the ninth, and it suggests that Frankish government was more law‐based and administrative than is often allowed.     

Knowledge of the past and the judgement of history in tenth‐century Trier: Regino of Prüm and the lost manuscript of Bishop Adventius of Metz

Regino of Prüm's chronicle is an invaluable source for ninth‐ and early tenth‐century Frankish history, but also for contemporary perceptions of that history. Though Regino's motivations for writing continue to be discussed, most historians now agree that his account can be read as one of Carolingian rise and fall. This article argues that this interpretative stance should be considered as in part a product of Regino's engagement with the surprisingly limited sources for the ninth century at his disposal. Taken together, these texts suggested a narrative for which Regino could find ample confirmation in the events of his own time.     

Original DocumentsExtracts from the Pipe Roll of the Exchequer, 21 Edw. III. (A.D. 1353), Relating to the Early use of Guns and Gunpowder in the English Army

This report is concerned with a sampling excavation of Bronze Age, Roman and late Saxon/early medieval settlement traces near the church at Wraysbury, Berkshire. The most extensive evidence is for an agricultural settlement of the late ninth to twelfth centuries A. D. based on a series of ditched enclosures and trackways. The settlement moved location during the eleventh century. The environmental evidence is particularly important. A large faunal assemblage including extensive fish remains exists for the late Saxon and medieval phases as well as an unusual collection of charred plant remains. There are important groups of Late Bronze Age and Saxon pottery.     

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.     

Waltharius and Carolingian morality: satire and lay values

Some recent interpretations of the early medieval Latin poem Waltharius have seen it as offering a clerical critique of warrior culture. While the poem is difficult to date accurately, it seems more likely to belong to the ninth than the tenth century. When the poem is analysed in the context of contemporary Frankish works providing moral instruction to lay noblemen, its attitudes towards pride, wealth and warfare can be shown to lie within the mainstream of Carolingian reformers' thought. The notoriously bloody ending to the poem is also best seen as emphasizing Walter's successful heroism rather than undermining it.     

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.     

The Saxons within Carolingian Christendom: post-conquest identity in the translationes of Vitus,Pusinna and Liborius

The Franks incorporated Saxony into the Carolingian empire through a long, brutal struggle coupled with forced conversion. When Saxons themselves began to write a few decades afterwards, they had to make sense of this history and of their role and identity in their contemporary Carolingian world. In contrast to the portrayal of Saxons in writers such as Einhard and Rudolf, three ninth-century Saxon accounts of relic translations — those of Vitus, Pusinna and Liborius — reinterpreted history to claim a place for the Saxons as a distinct group equal to the Franks within the populus Christianus under the Carolingian monarchs. As a key part of their literary strategies, these authors attempted to salvage from the story of their defeat and forced Christianisation an account of God's sovereignty, native agency and virtue (especially fidelity) as a foundational element of Saxon identity. These texts prefigure the debates about post-conquest Saxon identity which would underlay the later and better-known Ottonian triumphal self-conceptions. Moreover, the concerns of these authors led them to remarkable hagiographical innovations in grappling with paganism, conversion, miracles, social class and faith.     

Karl der Große,Alkuin und die Zeitrechnung

In connection with the Carolingian renewal of education Charlemagne also cared for a homogeneous reckoning of time. He organized the Carolingian reform of the calender with the help of Alkuin of York, an Anglo‐Saxon scholar. Having heard of Alkuin's learning and teaching abilities, the Frankish King invited him to lead his Palace school at Aachen. Moving to Francia 782, Alkuin became the key counselour of Charlemagne for science, education and church matters. Among other subjects Alkuin taught the King especially calendrical reckoning (computus) and astronomy, in which he took a special personal interest. Charlemagne discussed these subjects often with Alkuin, sometimes even in letters, still preserved today. For this correspondence on astronomy and calendrical reckoning it was assumed that Alkuin was the author of four short anonymous writings on computus. Moreover, Charlemagne comissioned Alkuin to write a standard work on computus, which is lost today. But three Carolingian manuals on computus survived. Which of the four anonymous writings really stem from Alkuin himself? What influence he had upon the manuals? These two questions are investigated here on the basis of the most important matter of computus: the calculation of the age of the moon in the 19‐year lunar cycle, necessary for dating the movable feast of Easter (on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring). These facts were discussed in detail, even vehemently, in the correspondence between Alkuin and Charlemagne.     

BEYOND THE ROMAN EMPIRE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN GUDME ON FUNEN, DENMARK

Summary. More than one hundred years ago in the Gudme area on Funen, Denmark, Frederik Sehested carried out probably the earliest regional survey in world archaeology. This was subsequently published in two magnificent volumes. Today the Gudme-area is the focus of the main research project of Danish archaeology, investigating a truly massive 'royal' settlement of some two hundred hectares near Gudme with the adjacent emporium at Lundeborg on the nearby coast of the Greater Belt. The settlements, cemeteries, and hoards of precious metals of the region date in the main from 200–600 A.D., the late Roman and migration periods of European history. The royal settlement is seemingly made up of farms with longhouses of ordinary type, but with very rich finds, including many Roman and Frankish imports, and remains of luxury crafts. The emporium antedates the well-known Carolingian and Viking establishments by several centuries and was founded when Roman cities still flourished, e.g., in the Rhinelands.     

Overlooked Husbands: The Paradox of Unfree Marriage in the Carolingian World

Unfree people in the Roman world could not legally marry, while they could in the Middle Ages. This paper explores the marriage of the unfree in the Carolingian empire (750–900 CE), a society with an intense moral concern about marriage. Carolingian churchmen wrote extensively about marriage, using a strongly gendered discourse focusing on how men should approach marriage and behave as husbands. However, these moral and legal texts rarely discussed unfree marriage, even though the practice was common. It is argued that this silence reflects the persistence of late antique class-based gender models, in which masculinity was reserved for married property holders. Although legal prohibitions on unfree marriages had ended, Carolingian moralists continued to be influenced by patristic assumptions that these were not valid relationships. These assumptions, combined with Frankish social practices that largely excluded unfree men from other key male roles, such as arms-bearing, meant that unfree husbands were not conceptualised as sufficiently ‘manly’ to have their marriages discussed. It is only from the tenth century onwards, when images of masculinity began to fragment more along lines of social status, that authors began explicitly to state that the Christian ideas of marriage applied to all, free and unfree.     

Lawcourt proceedings in the Lombard kingdom before and after the Frankish conquest

The Frankish conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774 is considered a basic event and even a turning point in the early medieval history of Italy. Lombard institutions are believed to have disappeared in favour of Frankish rules and customs. This article seeks to refute this view by demonstrating that there is a very great deal of continuity between the two periods for one of the most important judicial institutions, the trial. It will be shown that the different phases of court procedure remain nearly unaltered after the acquisition of Northern Italy by the Franks and that even the most striking difference between the Frankish and the Lombard trial, namely the distinction between judges and scabini, was not introduced in this part of the Carolingian Empire before 827. Even after that date the Frankish distinction was only applied in some trials, while the Lombard procedure remained the more common.     

Trading places: Quentovic and Dorestad reassessed

In any list of Carolingian emporia, Quentovic and Dorestad feature prominently, yet the numismatic evidence reveals a complete contrast between the two. In the late eighth and early ninth centuries, contrary to popular belief, Quentovic was of very little economic significance. At the same time, Dorestad was booming, reaching the peak of its prosperity around 820. Only thirty years later, the situation was dramatically reversed: Dorestad rapidly declined and disappeared, while Quentovic enjoyed a remarkable renaissance. This challenges the current theory that the emporia disappeared in the mid-ninth century, to be replaced by the emerging towns.     

The significance of the Carolingian advocate

This article argues that ninth-century advocates in the Frankish world deserve more attention than they have received. Exploring some of the wealth of relevant evidence, it reviews and critiques both current historiographical approaches to the issue. Instead of considering Carolingian advocates as largely a by-product of the ecclesiastical immunity, or viewing advocacy as a Trojan horse for a subsequent establishment of lordship over monasteries, the article proposes a reading of ninth-century advocacy as intimately linked with wider Carolingian reform, particularly an interest in promoting formal judicial procedure.     

William of Malmesbury's Carolingian sources

In his great history of England, the Gesta regum Anglorum, completed in 1125, William of Malmesbury included digressions on continental affairs. One of these, on the Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs, provides an interesting study of William's historical method. His Frankish sources are difficult to identify, but we are helped by the survival of the late twelfth-century English MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat. class d.39. This book contains, inter alia, a collection of chronicles and short pieces on Frankish history. We attempt to show that it was copied from a MS. made by or for William, and that his own notes were recopied into its margins. Moreover, it seems probable that he himself compiled the collection of chronicles in it. This discovery enables us to identify most of William's Frankish materials, to draw important conclusions about his manipulation of them, and so advance our knowledge of twelfth-century historiography generally.     

William of Malmesbury's Carolingian sources

In his great history of England, the Gesta regum Anglorum, completed in 1125, William of Malmesbury included digressions on continental affairs. One of these, on the Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs, provides an interesting study of William's historical method. His Frankish sources are difficult to identify, but we are helped by the survival of the late twelfth-century English MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat. class d.39. This book contains, inter alia, a collection of chronicles and short pieces on Frankish history. We attempt to show that it was copied from a MS. made by or for William, and that his own notes were recopied into its margins. Moreover, it seems probable that he himself compiled the collection of chronicles in it. This discovery enables us to identify most of William's Frankish materials, to draw important conclusions about his manipulation of them, and so advance our knowledge of twelfth-century historiography generally.     

Louis the Pious and the contours of empire

When the southern Iberian city of Mérida revolted against Umayyad control, the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious (814–40) sought to gain recognition there of his own political authority, probably in early 830. Motivated by a desire to project Frankish power after Umayyad intervention in Catalonia, the move was also in keeping with larger patterns of Carolingian expansion in the Iberian frontier zone. The incident is further revealing of Louis the Pious's wider imperial ambitions in the 820s, which early medieval conceptions of space allowed to be expressed over surprisingly long distances, well beyond the frontiers of the Frankish kingdoms.