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On the limits of the Carolingian renaissance1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Janet L. Nelson*
Affiliation:
University of LondonKing's College

Extract

Einhard tells us that Charlemagne had a special liking for ‘those books of St Augustine called The City of God’. If only he had told us why. Did Charlemagne demand readings from book 5 on the happy Christian emperors? Or was he, as Ladner suggests, particularly attracted by ‘the idea of a society embracing earth and heaven, a society which a man could join through personal renewal’? If Ladner is right, then, he tells us, we should talk not of a Carolingian renaissance—‘secondary classicising features notwithstanding’—but of a Carolingian reform ‘as just one phase in the unfolding history of the realisation of the Reform idea in Christian history’ and specifically ‘an attempt to recreate the religious culture of the fourth and fifth centuries’. But is Lander right about Charlemagne? I have my doubts: perhaps what he really enjoyed most was book 22’s meaty chapter on the resurrection of the flesh or its rattling good miracle-story.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1977

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Footnotes

1

The wording of my title is a deliberate echo of Liebeschütz[H.], ‘Wesen und Grenzen [des karolingischen Rationalismus]’, in A[rchiv] [für] K[ultur]g[eschichte], 33 (Berlin1950) pp 17seq, and Löwe[H.], ‘On the limits of the Carolingian renaissance1’, in DA, 14 (1958) pp 345seq.

References

2 V[ita] K[aroli Magni], ed Holder-Egger, O., MGH SRG (1911) cap 24, p 29 Google Scholar.

3 As implied by Wallace-Hadrill, [J. M.], [Early Germanic] Kingship [in England and on the Continent] (Oxford 1971) p 104 Google Scholar. Compare Arquilhère, H. X., L’augustinisme politique (2 ed Paris 1955) cap iv, esp pp 164, 196Google Scholar.

4 Ladner, [G.], ‘Die mittelalterliche Reform-Idee und ihr Verhältnis zur Renaissance’, in MIÖG 60 (Vienna 1952) p 54 with n 109 Google Scholar.

5 Le Goff, [J.], Les Intellectuels au Moyen Age (Paris 1969) p 14 Google Scholar.

6 Schramm, [P. E.], K[aiser,] K[önige und] P[äpste] (Stuttgart 1968) 1, pp 27 seq Google Scholar and esp 336 seq. Patzelt, E., Die karolingische Renaissance (Berlin 1923, repr Graz 1965)Google Scholar also rejected the notion of a renaissance under Charlemagne but on other grounds. Schramm dismisses this book too glibly: though many of her arguments must be abandoned in the light of subsequent research, Patzelt was in my view correct in emphasising continuities between the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. But she gave no consideration to law.

7 See Trier, J., ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des Renaissance-Begriffes’, in AKG, 33 (1950) pp 45 seq Google Scholar, and ‘Wiederwuchs’, AKG 43 (1961) pp 177 seq. For further references and a fine analysis of the concepts involved here, see the indispensable work of Ladner, , The Idea of Reform (rev ed New York 1967)Google Scholar and the same author’s very useful summary in RAC 6 (1966) cols 240 seq under ‘Erneuerung’. In ‘Gregory the Great and Gregory VII: a comparison of their concepts of renewal’, in Viator, 4 (Berkeley 1973) PP 1 seq at pp 24-5, Ladner has some interesting comments on the Carolingian renaissance, expanding the few scattered remarks in The Idea of Reform, and promising a full treatment of this subject in a forthcoming book, now eagerly awaited.

8 Schramm’s main reason for preferring this term was that it expressed the actio of Charlemagne himself. The false assumption here is that the ‘biological’ birth-process in the case of human beings excludes any positive exercise of the will. Could Schramm not have cast Charlemagne in the metaphorical role, if not of mother, then of midwife?

9 Riché, [P.], Education [et culture dans l’Occident barbare] (3 ed Paris 1973) p 552 Google Scholar.

10 Lehmann, P., ‘Das Problem der karolingischen Renaissance’, in SS Spoleto 1 (1954) pp 309 seq Google Scholar.

11 I omit any consideration of the political aspects of Carolingian imperial renovatio, on which see Schramm, , Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (Leipzig 1929)Google Scholar and KKP, 1 pp 215 seq, and Löwe, ‘Von den Grenzen’.

12 Compare Edelstein, W., Eruditio und Sapientia. Weltbild und Erziehung in der Karolingerzeit (Freiburg i. Breisgau 1965) passim, esp pp 22 Google Scholar and 85 n 35, some penetrating criticisms of Fleckenstein, J., Die Bildungsreform Karls des Grossen als Verwirklichung der ‘norma rectitudinis’ (Bigge-Ruhr 1953)Google Scholar.

13 This phrase from the Libri Carolini forms the title of a remarkable book by Dahlhaus-Berg, [E.], Kölner Historische Abh, 23 (Cologne 1975) with pp 35 seq Google Scholar esp relevant in the present context.

14 For the immediate liturgical situation, see Dahlhaus-Berg, Nova Antiquitas, pp 94 seq and for the wider background, Ullmann, [W.], [The] C[arolingian] Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship] (London 1969) pp 6 seq Google Scholar with additional references on p 191, to which should be added the baptismal liturgy itself, as in, for example, Deshusses, J., Le sacramentare gregorien, SpicFr 16 (1971) no 1086, p 379 Google Scholar: ‘Deus ... qui te regeneravit...’ Still valuable is Burdach, [K.], Reformation, [Renaissance, Humanismus] (Berlin 1918) esp pp 37 seq Google Scholar.

15 The distinction was drawn by Ladner, ‘Erneuerung’, col 262.

16 CR, p 5. My further quotations are from pp 8, 9, 11 and 22 of the same work.

17 CR p 5.

18 Their importance in relation to law is stressed by Forsthoff, E., ‘Zur Problematik der Rechtserneuerung’, in Naturrecht oder Rechtsposiliuismus?, ed Maihofer, W. (Darmstadt 1966) pp 83 seq Google Scholar.

19 Ullmann, CR, p 7.

20 In arguing that law was an integral part of this renaissance, Ullmann, CR, though on somewhat different premises, takes the same view as Heer, [F.], ‘Die “Renaissance”-Ideologie [im früheren Mittelalter]’, in MIÖG, 57 (1949) pp 48-9Google Scholar.

21 Heer, ‘Die “Renaissance”-Ideologie’, p 49, nn 67 and 69, cites two poetic examples. I am aware of two other references to leges renovare: Cathwulf, MGH Epp 4, p 50, and the mid-ninth century Vita Lebuini Antiqua, MGH SS 30, p 793, referring to the assemblies of the eighth-century Saxons: ‘renovabant leges et praecipuas causas adiudicabant’. For the late classical background to this idea, see Ladner, ‘Erneuerung’, col 263.

22 For example Einhard, , VK cap 29, p 33 Google Scholar; MGH Cap 1, no 33, p 92. But such expressions remained uncommon: see Köbler, [G.], [Das] Recht [im frühen Mittelalter] Forschungen zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte 7 (Cologne 1971) p 225 Google Scholar.

23 Ewig, [E.], ‘[Zum christlichen] Königsgedanken [im Frühmittelalter]’, in Das Königtum. Vorträge und Forschungen 3 (Konstanz 1956) pp 32 seq Google Scholar; Wallace-Hadrill, , [The] Long-haired Kings (London 1962) pp 37 seq Google Scholar, and Kingship, pp 32 seq.

24 For Italy, see below pp 57-8 with n 33; for Visigothic law in the Carolingian realms, see Ullmann, CR, p 81 with n 2.

25 Edictum Rothari, ed Beyerle, F., Die Gesetze der Langobarden (Weimar 1947) prologue, p 16 Google Scholar; Leovigild: Isidore, Historia Gothorum, cap 5, MGH CM 2, p 288; Recceswinth: Lex Visigothorum Recc. I, 1, 9, MGH Leg 1, 1, p 40, and Erwig, ibid 2, 1, 1, p 45. Compare Clothar II’s Edictum, MGH Cap 1, no 9, p 20. The ultimate model was the preface to Justinian’s Nov vii, referring to one law ‘quae priores omnes et renovet et emendet et quod deest adiciat ct quod superfluum est abscidiat’.

26 Köbler, Recht, pp 215 seq.

27 For interpretations along these lines, compare Wallace-Hadrill, Long-haired Kings, pp 213-14, and ‘A background to St Boniface’s mission’, in Early Medieval History (Oxford 1975) p 139; and Wolfram, H., ‘The shaping of the early medieval principality’, in Viator, 2 (1971) p 45 Google Scholar. On the ‘Rome-free imperial idea’, Erdmann, C., Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frühmittelalters (Berlin 1951) esp pp 22 seq Google Scholar. remains fundamental. See now also Stengel, E. E., Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisergedankens im Mittelalter (Cologne 1965) pp 260 seq Google Scholar, 289 seq, and Schramm, , KKP, 1, pp 250 seq Google Scholar, both of whom, however, underestimate the significance of pre-Carolingian gentile-imperial ideas. Löwe, , ‘Von Theoderich dem Grossen zu Karl dem Grossen’, in DA, 9 (1952) pp 367 Google Scholar, n 54 and 383 seq provides a valuable corrective, though he has relatively little to say on Merovingian sources. I hope to deal elsewhere with the evidence, legal, liturgical and otherwise, for a Merovingian concept of gentile, hegemonial, imperial kingship.

28 Einhard, , VK cap 29, p 33 Google Scholar.

29 Ibid: ‘Post susceptum imperiale nomen cum adverteret multa legibus populi sui deesse . . . cogitavit quae deerant addere . . .’

30 So, Ganshof, [F.], Recherches [sur les Capitulaires] (Paris 1958) pp 98 seq Google Scholar, and ‘Charlemagne’s programme of imperial government’, in The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy (London 1971) pp 55 seq.

31 Ed Schwind, E., MGH Leg 1, 1, pt 2, p 202 Google Scholar. (The edition of K. Beyerle has unfortunately been inaccessible). For the date—probably seventh-century—see Beyerle, F., ‘Die süddeutschen Leges [und die merowingische Gesetzgebung]’, in ZRG GAbt 49 (1929) pp 373 seq Google Scholar, and ‘Die beiden süddeutschen Stammesrechte’, in ZRG GAbt 73 (1956) p 124.

32 See Riché, Education, pp 489 seq (Alamannia and Bavaria), 387 seq and 455 seq (Lombard kingdom). The more ‘Romanising’ laws of the Burgundian and Gothic kingdoms are contrasted with those of the Franks, Lombards and Anglo-Saxons by Astuti, [G.], ‘Note critiche [sul sistema delle fonti giuridiche nei regni romano-barbari dell’occidente]’, in Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 377, 8 ser 25 (Rome 1970) pp 319 seq Google Scholar, at 325 seq. For a similar contrast on general grounds, see Musset, L., The Germanic Invasions, 400-600 (London 1975) pp 67 seq Google Scholar and 211.

33 See Riché, , ‘Enseignement [du droit en Gaule du VIe au XIe siècle’, in Ius Romanum Medii Aevi 5b, bb (Brussels 1965), p 15 Google Scholar, and the interesting suggestions of Bullough, [D. A.], ‘ Europae Pater: Charlemagne and his achievement in the light of recent research’, in EHR, 85 (1970), pp 92 seq Google Scholar.

34 Riché, ‘Enseignement’, pp 16 seq.

35 Ibid p 16.

36 Gaudemet, [J.], ‘Survivances [romaines dans le droit de la monarchie franque du Ve au Xe siècle]’, in Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 23 (Harlem 1955) pp 149 seq Google Scholar, esp p 205: ‘Si la renaissance carolingienne se traduit par des références plus fréquent plus nombreuses et plus variées . . . aud droit romain dans les oeuvres de doctrine et dans les collections canoniques, cette période semble au contraire correspondre à une regression due rôle effectif du droit romain dans la pratique’. (My stresses.)

37 ‘Droit romain [dans les capitulaires]’, in Ius Romanum Medii Aevi, pt i, 2b, cc α-β (1969), pp 14 seq.

38 The evidence is given, though not fully appraised, by Ganshof, ‘Droit romain’, and Recherches, esp pp 22 seq, 47 seq. The similarly ad hoc ways by which capitulary-texts were transmitted are indicated in Eckhardt, W. A., Die Kapitulariensammlung Bischof Ghaerbalds von Luttich (Göttingen 1955)Google Scholar; reviewing this book, Wallace-Hadrill, , Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, 24 (1956) p 472 Google Scholar, notes that texts had to be translated from the vernacular into Latin, and then back again. On the nature of the capitularies, and on other matters, I am grateful to Rosamond McKitterick (née Pierce) for valuable criticisms of an earlier version of this paper.

39 See Kottje, R., ‘Einheit und Vielfalt des kirchlichen Lebens in der Karolingerzeit’, in ZKG, 76 (1965) pp 323 seq Google Scholar, and now Mordek, H., Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich (Berlin 1975) esp pp 151 seq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Annales Laureshamenses, sa 802, ed Pertz, G. (Hanover 1826), MGH SS 1, p 38 Google Scholar.

41 The term legislatures here exactly reflects the character of early medieval law and law-making: see below p 64. These men seem to be identical with those termed iudices in other texts: see Ganshof, Recherches, p 22 and Carolingians, p 69 and p 156 n 45 for iudices (in southern Gaul) as ‘scabini under another name’. Compare Lex Baiuv, prol, p 201: ‘viri sapientes qui in regno . . . legibus antiquis eruditi erant’, presumably identical with the judices, ibid XVII, 5; and Edict. Rothari, cap 386, p 93: ‘iudices et antiqui homines’ have helped to compile the code. Law-men of this type seem to me meant by the phrase legis doctores in a judgement of Pippin III shortly before 751, ed Tardif, J., Monuments historiques (Paris 1866) no 54, p 45 Google Scholar. Riché, ‘Enseignement’, p 14, and ‘Le renouveau culturel à la cour de Pépin III’, Francia, 2 (Munich 1975), p 64, implies that the reference here may be to Roman law. But the passage as a whole reads: ‘. . . sicut proceres nostri seu comitis palacii nostri vel reliqui legis doctores judicaverunt’, (my stress) which suggests a lex, that is Lex Salica, with which laymen normally associated with Frankish judgement-finding would be familiar.

42 On Carolingian ‘Laienspiegel’, with rich bibliographical data, see Anton, H. H. Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonner Historische Forschungen 32 (Bonn 1968) pp 83 seq Google Scholar and 213.

43 [La] Vie Quotidienne [dans l’Empire Carolingien] (Paris 1973) pp 99 seq.

44 See Schlesinger, [W.], Beiträge [zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters] (Göttingen 1963) 1, pp 33 seq Google Scholar, 316 seq.

45 Green, D.H., The Carolingian Lord (Cambridge 1965), esp pp 115 seq Google Scholar, 288 seq, shows that this process long antedates the Carolingian period, but in caps 10 and 11 argues for major developments precisely then. See now also Wallace-Hadrill, ‘War and Peace in the early Middle Ages’, in Early Medieval History, esp pp 31 seq.

46 So, Ewig, ‘Königsgedanken’, pp 63 seq, and ‘La monocratie dans l’Europe occidentale’, in Receuils Jean Bodin 21 (Brussels 1969), p 89. That some new conception of pax led Charlemagne into a frontal attack on feud is rightly questioned by Wallace-Hadrill, Long-haired Kings, pp 145 seq, and Kingship, pp 107 seq (where his own immediately following remarks imply the inaccuracy of the designation of the Admonitio Generalis (789) as ‘legislation against feud’).

47 Lex Burgundionum, ed de Salis, , MGH Leg 1, 2, 1, pp 30-1Google Scholar; Edictum Clotharii, in MGH Cap 1, no 9, pp 22-3.

48 Köbler, Recht, p 99.

49 Stouff, L., ‘La formation des contrats par l’écriture dans le droit des formules du Ve au XIIe siècle’, in Nouvelle Revue Historique du Droit Français et Etranger, 11 (Paris 1887), esp pp 259 Google Scholar, 274 seq; Gaudemet, ‘Survivances’, pp 185 seq, 199 seq.

50 See, with further references, Buchner, [R.], [Die] Rechtsquellen (Weimar 1953)Google Scholar [Beiheft to W. Wattenbach and W. Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Vorzeit und Karolinger], pp 4 seq, suggesting Stammesrecht as preferable to either of these terms. F. Beyerle, ‘Die süddeutschen Leges’, pp 388 seq, asserts a sharp distinction between Weistum and Satzung, but shows that this cannot be simply aligned with the Volksrecht/Königsrecht division. Compare also his ‘Über Normtypen und Erweiterungen der Lex Salica’, in ZRG GAbt 44 (1924) pp 216 seq, where this same non-alignment is clear. Schlesinger, Beiträge, p 30, observes that ‘Königliche Herrschaft und adlige Herrschaft waren ursprunglich ebensowenig unterschieden wie Königsrecht und Volksrecht’. I am suggesting that the distinction remained blurred in practice in the Carolingian period.

51 MGH Cap 1, no 67, p 156.

52 CR pp 30 and 10.

53 Recherches pp 29 seq.

54 Dumas, A., ‘La parole et l’écriture dans les capitulaires carolingiens’ in Mélanges Halphen (Paris 1951) pp 209 seq Google Scholar.

55 MGH Cap 1, no 103, p 212. The episode is discussed by Ganshof, Recherches, p 21.

56 Devisse, J., Hincmar et la Loi (Dakar 1961)Google Scholar. See also my forthcoming article on Hincmar’s legal and political thought in EHR.

57 Edict of Pîtres (864), in MGH Cap 2, no 273, p 313: ‘. . . lex consensu populi et constitutione regis fit . . .’ Compare Hincmar, De Ordine Palatii, cap 8, ed V. Krause, MGH Cap 2, p 520: ‘reges capitula . . . generali consensu fidelium suorum . . . promulgaverunt’. For Hincmars presence in 864, see Schrörs, H., Hinkmar, Erzbischqf von Reims (Freiburg-i.-Breisgau 1884) pp 232 Google Scholar, 573.

58 Devisse, , ‘Essai sur l’histoire d’une expression qui a fait fortune: Consilium et auxilium au IXe siècle’, in Moyen Age, 23 (Paris 1968) pp 179 seq Google Scholar.

59 See the subtle and plausible argument of Brühl, C.-R., ‘Hinkmariana II. Hinkmar im Widerstreit von kanonischem Recht und Politik in Ehefragen’, in DA, 20 (1964) pp 48 seq Google Scholar.

60 Buchner, Rechtsquellen pp 4 seq; Astuti, ‘Note critiche’, pp 325 seq, with rich bibliography of recent literature at p 333, n 18. Gaudemet, ‘Survivances’, p 158, n 23, observes that in the edict of Pîtres of 864 (see above n 57) the concept of gentile law appears to have a territorial rather than a personal sense. Compare the development from gentile to regional (and pseudo-gentile) solidarities sketched by Ewig, , ‘Volkstum und Volksbewusstsein im Frankenreich des 7 Jhdts’, in SS Spoleto 5 (1958) pp 587 seq Google Scholar. Such a gradual evolution of territoriality out of the personality of laws seems more plausible than the sharp break alleged by Schlesinger, Beiträge, p 44. But I can see no evidence of any Carolingian attempt to unify the law over the whole realm such as Devisse, ‘Essai’, p 181, n 11, suggests might be ascribed to Charles the Bald. This is not to deny the influence of Visigothic legislation in other respects on ninth-century clerics: see Ullmann, CR, p 81 with n 2.

61 Thus, the Pactum of Coulaines (843), MGH Cap 2, no 254, p 253 seq. Compare also ibid pp 281, 296, 330, 339, and very similar expressions of the same principle in the Ostrogothic and Merovingian realms: Cassiodorus, Variae VII, 3, in MGH AA 12, p 203, and Passio Leodegarii, in MGH SRM 5, p 289 (here the lex vel consuetudo has become linked with the patria).

62 For some evidence of this, which also suggests a ‘territorialisation’ of the personality principle–that is, the gentile law is attached to an estate, and only secondarily to the people who work on it—see Goffart, W., The Le Mans Forgeries (Cambridge, Mass., 1966) pp 144, 236Google Scholar; and Krause, H., ‘Königtum und Rechtsordnung in der Zeit der sächsischen und salischen Herrscher’, in ZRG GAbt 82 (1965) p 8 Google Scholar.

63 See Morrison, [K. F.], [The] Two Kingdoms (Princeton 1964) pp 35, 90 seq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 De raptu viduarum, in PL 125 (1852) col 1026; De Ordine Palatii pp 524 seq.

65 See his letter to Louis the Pious Adversus legem Gundobadi, ed Dümmler, E., MGH Epp 5, pp 158 seq Google Scholar.

66 Boshof, E., Erzbischof Agobard von Lyon (Cologne 1969) pp 41 seq Google Scholar; compare also Liebeschutz, ‘Wesen und Grenzen’, pp 33 seq. I am grateful to Ian Wood for his helpful suggestions here.

67 The further erosion of the principle during the ninth century (the process had begun much earlier) was due, not to the Carolingian renaissance but to the growing regionalisation and feudalisation of social and political relationships. Compare n 60, above. It is worth noting the still gentile imperialism of Agobard’s proposed solution to the Burgundian problem, when he requests the emperor ‘ut eos [Burgundiones] transferret ad legem Francorum; et ipsi nobiliores efficerentur . . .’ (My stress).

68 Kroeschell, [K.], ‘Rechtsfindung’, in Festschrift fur H. Heimpel (Göttingen 1972) 3, pp 498 seq Google Scholar at p 512. See also his ‘[Recht und] Rechtsbegriff’, im 12 Jht’, in Vorträge und Forschungen, 12 (1968), pp 309 seq; Ebel, W., Die Willkur (Göttingen 1953) esp pp 37 seq Google Scholar; Hagemann, H., ‘ Fides facto und wadiatio. VomWesen des altdeutschen Formalvertrages’, in ZRG GAbt 83 (1966) pp 1 seq Google Scholar, esp 28 seq; Köbler, Recht, esp pp 211 seq.

69 ‘Rechtsfindung’, p. 513.

70 Kern’s thesis was set out in ‘Recht und Verfassung im Mittelalter’, in HZ 120 (1919), trans Chrimes, S.B. in Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford 1968) part 2, pp 149 seq Google Scholar. For penetrating revisions of Kern, see Krause, H., ‘Dauer und Vergänglichkeit im mittelalterlichen Recht’, ZRB GAbt 75 (1958) pp 206 sea Google Scholar, whose title epitomises ‘einen anscheinend unauflöslichen Gegensatz’ in medieval law (p 217): ‘Ein konstituierender Faktor des Rechts ist die Länge der Zeit, das Element der Dauer—ein konstituierender Faktor des Rechts ist die Macht des gegenwärtigen Herrschers, das Element der Vergänglichkeit’. For further observations and recent literature, see also Ullmann, , Law and Politics in the Middle Ages (London 1975) pp 30 with n 1 Google Scholar, 48 with n 2.

71 As noted, against Kroeschell, by Köbler, Recht, p 226. Kroeschell’s recent reply, ‘Rechtsfindung’, p 510, n 66, is unconvincing. I hope to return elsewhere to this problem.

72 I follow here Kroeschell, ‘Rechtsbegriff’, esp pp 325 seq. Kroeschell’s book Haus und Hauscherrschaft im frühen deutschen Recht (Göttingen 1958) has unfortunately been inaccessible.

73 Despite the innovations in Germanic legal terminology from the ninth century onwards observed by Köbler, , ‘Richten—Richter—Gericht’, in ZRC GAbt 87 (1970) pp 57 seq Google Scholar, esp 108 seq, and assigned by him to clerical influence, Kroeschell, ‘Rechtsfindung’, p 513 sees no change in the assumptions inherent in persisting traditional procedures.

74 Kroeschell, ‘Rechtsbegriff’, p 333, though the causal factors are here barely hinted at. Despite the qualifications of Kroeschell, p 320, and ‘Rechtsfindung’, pp 508 seq, I share the reservations of Köbler, Recht, p 226, as to the aptness in this context of the modern categories of’objective’ and ‘subjective’ law. On his own admission, Kroeschell’s major contrast is in fact between two types of ‘objective’ law, which suggests the need for a new classification.

75 CR, pp 116, 122.

76 For these and other similar requirements, see the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae (785), MGH Cap 1, no 26, pp 68-70.

77 The normal practice of child-baptism had long since transformed the catechnmenate from ‘einer Belehrungs- und Erzichungsinstitution zu einer Folge von Zeremonien rein liturgischen Charakters’: so, Dahlhaus-Berg, Noua Antiquitas, pp 94 seq with further references. The candidates for adult-baptism were conquered Saxons and Avars.

78 Compare Turner, B. S., Origins and traditions in Islam and Christianity’, in Religion, 6 (1976), pp 13 seq CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 25-6.

79 MGH Epp 4, no 111, pp 159-62. The date is 796 following the victory over the Avars: Alcuin hoped to avoid a repetition of the forced conversion of the Saxons. Compare the comments of Wallace-Hadrill, Kingship, p 102.

80 This aspect is stressed by Waas, A., ‘Karls des Grossen Frommigkeit’, in HZ, 203 (1966), pp 265 seq Google Scholar. See also Chélini, J., ‘Les laïcs dans la société ecclésiastique carolingienne’, in I laici nella societa cristiana dei secoli XIo-XIIo, Acta della terza Settimana internazionale di studio Mendola, 1965 (Milan 1968), pp 23 seq Google Scholar; Leclercq, [J.], The Spirituality of the Middle Ages (London 1968) pp 68 seq Google Scholar; Riché, , ‘Les bibliothèques de trois aristocrates laïcs carolingiens’. Moyen Age, 69 (1963) pp 87 seq Google Scholar, Vie Quotidienne, pp 215 seq, and Introduction to Dhuoda’s Manuel pour mon fils, SCP (1975), esp pp 24 seq. For further references, see above nn 43 and 46.

81 This is especially dear in the short sermon, probably by Paulinus of Aquileia, ed by Leclercq, in RB, 59 (1949) pp 159-60Google Scholar, esp lines 42 seq, where the preacher develops a series of striking oppositions: imperium—servitium; erigitur—humiliatur; inebriatur et pascitur—fame torquetur; pretiosi vestes—veteres panni. . . etc.

82 Köbler, Recht, p 88.

83 Riché, , ‘La Magie Carolingienne’, in Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris 1973) pp 127 seq Google Scholar.

84 Goff, Le, ‘Culture cléricale et traditions folkloriques dans la civilisation mérovingienne’, in Annales 22 (1967), pp 780 seq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 For these developments see Gaudemet, , ‘Les Ordalies au Moyen Age’, in Recueils Jean Bodin, 17 (1965), pp 99 seq Google Scholar, and the evidence in MGH Leg 5, Formulae ed Zeumer, K. (1886), pp 604 seq Google Scholar; my paper, ‘Symbols in context: rulers’ inauguration rituals in Byzantium and the west in the early Middle Ages’, SCH 13 (1976), pp 97 seq; Vogel, C., Le pécheur et la pénitence au Moyen Age (Paris 1969) pp 43 seq Google Scholar, and Pierce, R., ‘The “Frankish” penitentials’, SCH 11 (1975) pp 31 seq Google Scholar; Fichtenau, H., ‘Zum Reliquienwesen im früheren Mittelalter’, MIöG, 60 (1952), pp 60 seq Google Scholar, and Riché, Vie Quotidienne, pp 320 seq.

86 So, Ullmann, CR, p 36, with a full appraisal of the sermon literature; compare abo Bullough, , The Age of Charlemagne (2 ed London 1973) pp 115 seq Google Scholar.

87 So, Kantorowicz, E. H., ‘The Carolingian King in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura’, in Late Classical and Medieval Studies in Honour of A. M. Friend (Princeton 1955) p 293 Google Scholar. See also Wallace-Hadrill, Kingship, pp 124 seq, esp 135 (where, however, the reference of the capitulary of Pîtres is to confirmation-anointing, not royal consecration).

88 Riché, Introduction to Dhuoda’s Manuel, p 31. Riché continues: ‘Mais sommes-nous ici dans le domaine de la spiritualité ou plutôt dans celui de la culture intellectuelle? Il est vrai que pour Dhuoda il n’y avait pas de frontières’. Here Riché raises, without resolving, a major problem in the methodology of historians of ‘culture’.

89 Herchenfreda’s letters are preserved in the Vita Desiderii, ed Krusch, , MGH SRM 4, pp 560-70Google Scholar. For some details of their contents, see Riché, , De l’éducation antique à l’éducation chevaleresque (Paris 1968) pp 42-3Google Scholar. Riché himself suggests the comparison with Dhuoda.

90 Radbertus, Paschasius, Epitaphium Arsenii, ed Dummler, E., ADAW (1900) p 63 Google Scholar. See also Morrison, Two Kingdoms, pp 36 seq and passim, where, however, the theme of ‘dualism’ is overstated.

91 For the twelfth century, see Ullmann, Law and Politics, pp 83 seq, and Kroeschell, ‘Rechtsbegriff’, esp 326 seq; for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Franklin, J.H., Jean Bodin and the Sixteenth-century Revolution in the Methodology of Law and History (New York 1963)Google Scholar, Kelley, D.R., Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship. Language Law and History in the French Renaissance (New York 1970)Google Scholar, and The Francogallia of François Hotman, ed Giesey, R. and Salmon, J. H. M. (Cambridge 1972)Google Scholar. Burdach, Reformation, p 55, writes that although the idea of rebirth and reform existed throughout the middle ages, before the twelfth century ‘es war verblasst und erstarrt zu einer dogmatischen Formel der Sakramentenlehre’, but in the later middle ages ‘verwandelt jenes Bild sich in den Ausdruck eines. . . Gefühls und Verlangens rein menschlicher Art’ (my stress) as expressed in the ideal of the nova vita. Again, p 96, Burdach refers to ‘die langsame Säkularisierung des Gedankens der Wiedergeburt’ from the fourteenth century onwards.